Only 3 years of academic experience: RTI activist questions qualification of Haveri Institute of Medical Sciences Director

Haveri: Controversy has erupted over the qualification of the director of Haveri Institute of Medical Sciences (HIMS), after a Right to Information (RTI) reply revealed that the director only had three years of academic experience at the time of joining the post of Director at HIMS.

As per the norms, it is mandatory for a candidate to have a minimum of five years of service experience in the post of professor in any department of a recognised medical institute to be termed eligible for the post of Director.

However, after obtaining the academic documents of HIMS Director Dr. Uday Mulagund, RTI and social activist Satish Maladakar came to know that the doctor had completed only three years of service on July 12, 2022 when he was appointed in the post of Director.

Already, activist Maladakar has submitted a petition to the Chief Minister of Karnataka and Medical education minister of the State and alleged that Dr. Mulagund is ineligible for the director's post. "As per norms, a candidate should have completed five years of service as a professor in any department of a recognised medical institution. However, Dr Mulagund had been a professor only for three years at the time of his appointment," claimed Maladakar.

Ophthalmologist Dr. Mulagund had been appointed as HIMS Director by the State Government on July 12, 2022 and before that he had served in Karnataka Institute of Medical Sciences in Hubballi.

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However, claiming that the doctor only had three years of service experience, social activist Maladakar claimed, "Earlier, I had filed an application under RTI for his academic documents, but he did not provide them. He has been trying to hide his qualification. Finally, I got documents of his academic service from KIMS Hubballi. It is clear that he had only three years of service as on July 12, 2022, when he was appointed as the dean of HIMS. The government should relieve him from the post immediately."

In this regard, Maladakar referred to the MCI guidelines and told the Times of India, "According to Medical Council of India's Minimum Qualifications for Teachers in the Medical Institutions Regulations, 1998 and amended up to 2017, one should possess the recognised postgraduate medical qualification from a recognised institution with a minimum of 10 years of teaching experience as a professor or associate professor or reader in a medical college. Out of these, at least five years should be as a professor in any department in the recognised medical college. Dr Uday Mulagund is not qualified for the director's post, as he has completed just three years while he was appointed as dean of HIMS."

While commenting on the matter, an aspirant of a teaching post told the daily, "Dr. Uday Mulagund is not qualified for the dean's post according to his service records. How could he recruit teaching faculties at HIMS?"

Referring to the issue, an aspirant for the post of assistant professor told TOI, "Dr. Uday Mulagund cannot conduct recruitment at HIMS. Moreover, he made many errors intentionally during the recruitment of teaching faculties, altered academic marks, did not consider highest scores, and intentionally dropped candidates in the provisional list. The government should relieve him and revise the teaching faculties' selection list because it has a lot of irregularities."

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