New Delhi: Union HRD ministry is always embroiled with some or the other controversy but the recent development seems to be more serious when a petition has been filed with President of India Ramnath Kovind to declare oath of Union HRD minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nisank’ as cabinet minister null and void on the ground that during oath taking ‘Nisank’ prefixed ‘Dr’ before his name which the petition claims legally wrong and the minister is not qualified as per the spirit of constitution of India.

The petition submitted to the secretariat of President on August 27, 2019 alleges that he does not hold any doctorate degree. In fact, the doctorate degree which he has been claiming to hold is a fake and was given to him by some dubious institution in Sri Lanka. The petitioner submitted all the relevant documents in this regard including the document issued by the Sri Lankan government. The petitioner Manish Verma said that every document has been submitted to President Secretariat. There is a body called CSIR that has certified Sri Lankan University as fake. The copy of that has also been submitted.

The petition further alleges that while taking oath of Member the Lok Sabha on June 17, 2019, he did not mention ‘Dr’ which clearly indicates towards the gross error that he had committed while taking oath as a member of Union cabinet on May 30, 2019. This is very interesting to see that two things happened in a very short span of time by prefixing ‘Dr’ at the time of taking oath as cabinet minister, the HRD minister has violated the norms of constitution as he not only lied but canceled the fact making his oath as cabinet minister null and void.

The petition claims that Nisank is not even a graduate as he did not mention year of passing of his XII, BA, MA in his election affidavits that has been provided with this petition. A RTI was filed by one Rajesh Madhukant but HNBG University, Srinagar, Uttarakhand did not give any information and when the matter was taken to Central Information Commission on November 3, 2014 and commission directed university to provide all information about his degree before December 30, 2016 but nothing has happened so far.  The petition has demanded to declare oath null and void and an enquiry must be set up in this regard.

This seems to be an unprecedented situation that has taken place threatening sanctity of the constitution of India. It also makes his position untenable in the Union cabinet as this oath is untrue. If this is not rectified, the glaring anomaly will remain etched in the history of India and will be blot on glorious Parliamentary democracy.