Jadavpur University authorities have decided to confer honorary Doctorate degree to the Olympian boxer Mary Kom, after the legendary Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar refused to accept on ‘ethical grounds’. Mary Kom will be receiving the honorary degree at the 63rd Annual Convocation of Jadavpur University (JU) scheduled on December 24.

During a recent media interaction, the Vice-Chancellor Jadavpur University, Suranjan Das said, “We had decided to confer the honorary D. Lit to Mr. Sachin Tendulkar. We approached him but recently he has sent us a mail mentioning that he will not be able to accept the honor citing Nitigoto (ethical) reasons. He mentioned that he doesn’t accept such honor from any university. He even refused to accept a similar honor from Oxford University. He actually meant that since he hasn’t earned it, it would not be right for him to accept the D. Lit.”

ALSO READ: Sachin Tendulkar Feels Proud On His Daughter’s Graduation

The JU officials already informed the matter to Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi – who is the chancellor of the university and now they have decided to confer the honorary D. Lit to Mary Kom – an Indian Olympic boxer after Sachin’s refusal.

Mary Kom has won the World Amateur Boxing Championship five times and she is also the first Indian woman boxer to get a Gold Medal in the Asian Games in 2014 in Incheon, South Korea. Also, she is the first Indian Woman Boxer to win Gold at the 2018 Commonwealth Games. Beside Mary Kom – Director, Tata Medical Centre and Haematologist Dr. Mammen Chandy, eminent economist Kaushik Basu, banker Chandrasekhar Ghosh will be conferred the honorary D. Lit.

Molecular biologist Dipankar Chatterji will be given the honorary D. Sc. In 2011, Sachin Tendulkar refused to accept a similar offer from the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS). Last week, Sachin shared his moment of immense pride as his daughter Sara completed her graduation from the University College of London.