Dual Degrees cannot be used for promotions and recruitment:HC

Upholding a single judge's order,the Madras High Court today held that 'dual degrees' cannot be used for recruitments, promotions or to write Teacher Eligibility Tests.
The First Bench, comprising Chief Justice R K Agrawal and Justice M Sathyanarayanan, dismissing a batch of writ appeals and petitions, said, "Unless University Grants Commission recognised the degree as equivalent to UG degree in terms of Section 23(2) of UGC Act, 1956, it cannot be said that additional/dual degrees can be considered for promotion to a higher post or recruitment to a post or eligible to take Teacher Eligibility Test (TET)."
The matter relates to the practice of graduates studying a particular subject adding one more degree as 'dual degree' by spending an additional year on an additional and unconnected subject. Instead of writing all the papers, they write only the core subject papers. They leave out the language papers saying language papers are anyway common to both 'degrees'.

In August 2012, a single judge had held the practice as illegal and directed authorities concerned not to promote or recruit people on the basis of 'dual degrees', which were offered mainly by private universities and used mostly by teachers in government schools for promotion purposes.
Upholding the single judge order, the bench said, "A perusal of the additional/dual degree of some of the universities would disclose that dual/additional degree is totally alien to the first degree of 3 years duration and the core subject in the additional degree of two years duration are to be taught within one year."

A history teacher or an English teacher does not seek promotion to the post of BT assistant in middle schools to teach the same subject. Instead they seek to teach a totally different subject on the basis of a degree obtained after undergoing a one-year course, the single judge had said.
The judge also found that a person who acquired such one-year degrees or open university degrees do not get employment in the private sector.
Citing the single judge order, the bench said it is only in government service that such person seeks appointments, promotions, among others, on the basis of such degrees, and added "these degrees are actually specially designed and tailor-made by universities for serving or aspiring government servants.