Father-son duo does PhD from same varsity dept in same year

Pradeep Sharma

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 6

In one of  the first cases of its kind, a father-son duo, PK Sharma and Karan Sharma, residents of Panchkula, has the rare distinction of completing their Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degrees from the same faculty of the same university in the same year.

The distinction for PK Sharma (62), a retired Haryana Civil Services (HCS) officer currently re-employed as Secretary of the State Election Commission,  and Karan (35), Assistant Advocate General  with the Haryana Government,  came when the Law Department of Chaudhry Devi Lal University (CLDU), Sirsa, notified their doctorate degrees earlier this year.

“I feel ecstatic to have completed my doctorate with my son. The fact that we obtained concurrent doctorate degrees from the same department in the same year is the icing on the cake,” said PK Sharma.

In fact, Sharma felt  that studying with students in their late twenties and early thirties had provided him much-needed positivity after retirement as the  youth were more positive than the retired.

“I never hesitated to sit with my fellow students who were half my age and share my experiences with them. In fact, youngsters’ jokes and anecdotes rejuvenated me as research could be a  tiring and time-consuming exercise,” Sharma said with a smile.

It started in 2011 when Sharma and Karan enrolled for their doctorate degrees at the CDLU. While Sharma did his research in administrative law  on the topic of fair  punishment to public servants, Karan did his research  in the field of criminal law on the topic of death penalty.

PK Sharma, who enjoys reading classics and terms books as  his mental food, completed his MA (English) in 1979. After a gap of 24 years, he completed his  LLB from MDU, Rohtak, in 2003. 

He completed his LLM from KU, Kurukshetra, in 2008 before enrolling for PhD in 2011.