A medical intern who worked for 16 months at a Pietermaritzburg hospital with a “fake” degree has failed in a court bid to compel the University of KwaZulu-Natal to let him re-enrol and complete an unfinished module.
Pietermaritzburg high court judge Vusi Nkosi dismissed with costs the application launched by Reshal Dayanand, saying it was “ill conceived”.
This was because he had sought to “review”, under the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act (Paja), what he said was a decision by the university not to readmit him and allow him to complete the outstanding course, Integrated Medicine 3, to obtain his bachelor of medicine and bachelor of surgery degree.
However, the judge pointed out the university had taken no such decision.
Instead it had said it could not take any decision until the outcome of an internal probe and police investigation.
It was alleged that he fraudulently obtained his degree with the help of certain corrupt officials who operated as a syndicate.
— Vusi Nkosi, judge
It would then consider the situation if the results of both were in Dayanand’s favour.
Dayanand cited both the university and the Health Professionals Council of SA in his application.
Nkosi said the events leading to the proceedings began unfolding in February 2017 when Avris Sahadew, a forensic audit specialist, received information from a reporter that Dayanand, who was doing his medical internship at Northdale Hospital, had not completed his degree.
“It was alleged that he fraudulently obtained his degree with the help of certain corrupt officials who operated as a syndicate,” judge Nkosi said.
Sahadew obtained copies of Dayanand’s academic record and his degree, which he purportedly obtained at the end of 2015, and found that the documentation was fraudulent.
This was confirmed by two heads of department, Prof Fanie Botha and Prof Richard Hift, who informed her he did not complete the degree and did not pass the Integrated Medicine course.
Later that year, a newspaper would report on allegations of acts of corruption involving a syndicate of officials at the university.
Dayanand was suspended by the hospital and the health professionals council also suspended his membership.
He was interviewed by the police and denied any involvement in the falsification of his academic record and his degree certificate.
Over the years, Dayanand has been represented by three firms of attorneys. The first wrote to the director of legal services at the university asking that the matter be resolved “amicably” and proposed that he be accepted back as a student to redo the course.
The director responded that this was not only unacceptable but “ludicrous”.
A second law firm wrote and denied any wrongdoing on Dayanand’s part, and instead blamed the university for its “alleged inability to maintain its integrity as an academic institution”.
The university persisted in its stance that it did not regard Dayanand as having a valid medical degree.
In November 2020, a third firm of attorneys came on board. They wrote that they accepted their client had not passed the course but again denied any wrongdoing on his part.
They said the university was contractually bound to allow him to enrol for the course and “implored the university to take what steps necessary to facilitate him completing his degree”, Nkosi said.
Shepstone and Wylie, acting for the university, responded.
They again pointed out the matter was subject to ongoing investigation. Given the seriousness of the allegations, the university could not consider the request until this was finalised and, even then, only in his favour.
They also pointed out he had not been registered as a student for some five years, so he would be required to reapply for admission, that the original qualification was a five-year programme which had become obsolete and that, in any event, applications that year were closed.
It was at this point that Dayanand launched the court application.
Nkosi pointed out that apart from it being “ill conceived”, Dayanand would, in any event, have to apply for readmission to the university to complete his degree.
In terms of the General Academic Rules, he would have to produce evidence satisfactory to the senate of his competence to complete the degree. The senate could decline to admit any person whose previous academic attainments were not sufficiently high to warrant such an admission, the judge pointed out.
