Kalasalingam University on Thursday said that it would refer P. Ayyappan, a first-year student afflicted with vitiligo, to a medical board. “This is to satisfy fellow students and their parents.”
Responding to a report carried by The Hindu on Thursday, Registrar T. Vasudevan said that the varsity had never shut its doors on the deserving student for pursuing higher education.
The Registrar, who was non-committal on admitting the student in the current academic year, said in a statement that the university even went to the extent of informing Ayyappan’s parents that “it is ready to take him next year if he gets cured, in case the skin disease is infectious.”
Ayyappan was admitted to the six-year integrated course for the speech and hearing impaired after due process of selection, the statement said. Some of the fellow students had complained to university authorities about white patches on his body. Ayyappan was asked to leave the university soon after he was enrolled for the course. The youth with speech and hearing impairment from Tirunelveli had been confined to the hostel and not allowed to attend classes.
Despite the parents producing a medical certificate from a government dermatologist that vitiligo was only depigmentation of skin and not infectious, the authorities asked him to vacate the hostel on Wednesday.
The parents, along with Ayyappan, who were in Madurai, said on Thursday that they would approach the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court. “We have brought him up with a lot of difficulty and admitted him to the course of his choice. We cannot see him disappointed,” his mother said.
