College is lying, says Kerala prof

Management trying to extract confession from me

He told newsmen at his house at Muvattupuzha in Kochi on Sunday that the management’s version that he had deliberately framed a “provocative” question and that he was forewarned against it was a lie.

“I stand by my statement that there was no malafide intent behind framing that question. I had apologised because the question paper was one of the causes of the problems that cropped up later on. However, I had passed the question paper to the principal first. It was the college which took copies of the same and distributed them to the students,’’ he said.

The professor’s rejoinder came following the reading of a circular issued by the Kothamangalam diocese of the Syro Malabar Church justifying the professor’s dismissal from service in about 155 chapels on Sunday.

Joseph said that the college management was trying to completely distance from the issue by forcing him to say something he hadn’t done. “They want me to own up something which I had not done and clear their name,’’ he said.