Kerala Higher Education Minister KT Jaleel, who is under the scanner of various central investigation agencies for alleged protocol violation, has come under a new controversy. This time, allegations have been raised against the PhD thesis of the Minister, that there are major grammatical errors and that it does not merit a doctoral degree. A complaint was recently filed with the Chancellor and Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan demanding re-evaluation of KT Jaleel’s PhD thesis. However, the Minister has come out slamming the complaint, stating that it is part of the move by ‘enemies’ who failed to succeed in other controversies against him.

In the complaint filed by Save University Campaign Committee (SUCC), it has been alleged that there are major grammatical and structural errors in the thesis and that a revaluation by a team of expert academics is required to “bring out intellectual shallowness” of the researcher, KT Jaleel. The Kerala Governor on Monday forwarded the complaint to Vice Chancellor of the University of Kerala asking to appropriately consider the complaint and give a suitable reply.

The PhD thesis titled ‘Kunhahammed Haji and Ali Musliar - Their role in the Malabar Rebellion’ by Abdul Jaleel KT, was published in 2005 when the Minister was a lecturer at the PSMO College in Malappuram’s Tirurangadi. The work was later published as a book by DC Books, a major publishing house in Kerala, both in English as Revisiting Malabar Rebellion 1921 and in Malayalam as Malabar Kalapam Oru Punarvayana.

However in the complaint filed on November 5, Save University Campaign Committee has listed out numerous alleged structural and grammatical errors and their correct forms. The complaint alleges that the grammatical errors could be part of a conscious attempt to prevent detection of plagiarism.

However, one of the allegations in the complaint, that KT Jaleel has approached the research topic with a biased mind, has been stressed by the Minister in his Facebook post on Tuesday, to point out that the attempt of the group was in fact to portray the Malabar rebellion as a communal riot.

“It (PhD thesis) tried to break the Congress-Sanghi argument that the Malabar rebellion was a communal riot and that Kunhahammed Haji and Ali Musliar were communalists, by the backing of examples,” wrote the Minister, further alleging that this was the real reason behind the complaint.

The Minister also wrote that faults can be found in any book if one approaches it with a highly critical and communal mind. “It is academicians and readers who should say whether there is originality,” he added.

The Minister was quizzed by various central investigation agencies probing the controversial gold smuggling case, on allegations of protocol violations in accepting aid from the UAE Consulate in Thiruvananthapuram.