Why PhD theses get returned by examiners

What can a PhD examiner recommend at an Indian university?

Every examiner fills the university’s report form and puts the thesis under one category. The national regulations give only the minimum. The ordinance of your university names the categories and says what happens after each one. In the table we compare three sets of rules. First is the UGC PhD Regulations, 2022. Second is the Anna University Regulations for Doctor of Philosophy R2025, notified by circular dated 27 January 2025. Third is the Bharathiar University PhD Regulations 2024–25.

Look at two differences. Anna University calls revise-and-resubmit “defer the recommendation”. The revised thesis goes back to the same examiner. That examiner can then recommend only the award or rejection (clause 18.3.1), so there is no second round of revisions there. Bharathiar uses the words “Commended” and “Not Commended”. When one examiner does not commend the thesis, a third examiner of the same type is brought in, Indian or foreign as the case may be.

Your own university may use some other words. Check the report form in your ordinance, or ask the research section to give you a blank copy. When you know the categories before submitting, you can see what each result will do to your timeline.

What do the UGC PhD Regulations, 2022 say about thesis evaluation?

The national rules are in clause 11 of the UGC PhD Regulations, 2022, notified on 7 November 2022. Three parts of this clause are relevant when a thesis comes back.

• Clause 11(5): the external examiners. The supervisor evaluates the thesis along with at least two outside experts from other institutions. Where the university can arrange it, one of them is from abroad. How this panel gets proposed and then appointed, you can read in our submission and evaluation guide.
• Clause 11(6): the condition for the viva. The defence happens only after both outside examiners support acceptance and the corrections they asked are done. A single rejection is not the end. The university has to send the thesis to a further examiner from its approved panel. If that verdict is also negative, the attempt is over and the scholar is held ineligible for the degree.
• Clause 11(7): the time limit. The whole process, from submission to the declared viva result, has to finish in six months.

Some things are not there in clause 11. It has no revise-and-resubmit category. There is no resubmission fee and no deadline for a revised thesis. The clause allows universities to make ordinances to implement it, and each university fills these gaps in its own way. For that reason the next two sections quote university rules and not UGC rules.

Why do examiners send PhD theses back?

Mostly the examiners are senior researchers. They sit with a 200-page thesis on their own, and nobody is there to clear their doubts. If they ask a question in their mind and can’t find the answer in the text, they send the thesis back. In person they would have simply asked you. Most reasons come under the rows given below.

The last three rows are usually caught before any examiner sees the thesis. Anna University’s regulations show how. Before the thesis goes out, it is scrutinised for layout and presentation (clause 17.4). It has to include the papers published in the journals listed on the Centre for Research website (clause 17.5). Even the synopsis needs at least one such paper behind it (clause 16.2). The UGC similarity levels, and the way each university is applying them, are there in our plagiarism limits guide. The rules on publications at other universities are in our guide to the PhD publication requirement.

It is the first three rows that need the most attention. You can test them well at the pre-submission seminar. Suppose a committee member asks “what is new here?” and you give a vague answer. What that member is asking is the same thing an external examiner will write in the report.

How does resubmission work, and how long do you get?

We took the rules below from the two ordinances we read. Other universities make their own rules, so take these only as examples. For the fee, the time limit and how many attempts you get, look at your own ordinance.

Anna University (R2025)

• When your examiner defers the recommendation, you can revise and resubmit the thesis within six months, with the resubmission fee. If the revised thesis does not come in by that time, it will not be accepted and the registration gets cancelled (clause 18.3.1).
• The same examiner gets the revised thesis. The final recommendation from that examiner can be only award of the degree or rejection (clause 18.3.1).
• Sometimes one examiner recommends the award and the other recommends rejection. In that case a third examiner is nominated, and the decision is by two out of three (clause 18.3.2). When both reject, the thesis is rejected and the registration is cancelled (clause 18.3.3).

Bharathiar University (2024–25)

• You get twelve full months to resubmit a revised thesis (clause 20(t)).
• Ordinarily a candidate cannot resubmit the thesis, or appear for the viva, more than two times (clause 20(u)).
• The corrections or revisions that examiners insist on have to be completed before the public viva. You give them in with a supervisor’s certificate and a list of the changed pages (clause 20(n)).
• If neither examiner commends the thesis, it is sent to the Ethics and Grievance Redressal Committee for instructions (clause 20(l)).

The fee amount is not written in the regulations of either university. It comes from the fee notification of the university. Ask the research section what the current figure is. Resubmission because of plagiarism is a different route with its own time limits, and we have put that in the plagiarism guide linked above.

How should you respond to an examiner’s report?

Many universities are sharing the reports with the scholar, sometimes with the examiner’s name removed. If yours does this, then after the thesis itself your response is the most important thing you will write. At Anna University and many other places, it goes back to the very person who wrote the report.

1. 1

   Read the report twice, a day apart

   In the first reading look only at the recommendation. Read the detail next day. Mostly the report feels more helpful the second time.

2. 2

   List every point

   Put each comment in a table with a number, even that small point the examiner wrote somewhere in a long paragraph. Keep one column for what you plan to do.

3. 3

   Agree the plan with your supervisor

   Sit with your guide and decide which points need fresh analysis and which only need rewriting. Some points you may answer with an explanation and no change.

4. 4

   Revise the thesis

   Do each change, and note down the page and section where it now sits.

5. 5

   Write the response note

   Reply point by point. For each one, copy the comment, write what you changed and give the page number. Sometimes you will not agree with the examiner, and that is allowed as long as your evidence is there and the wording stays polite.

6. 6

   Resubmit within the time limit

   Pay the fee and submit the forms and any certificate your ordinance asks for. Do it well before the deadline, not on the last day.

What a good response note looks like

• It answers every point. Suppose the examiner sees that one comment was skipped. After that the whole response is read with suspicion.
• It shows the change. Many scholars just write “Revised as suggested” and the examiner learns nothing from that. A line like “Section 4.3 now reports the normality test for each group (Table 4.6, p. 112)” is strong.
• It disagrees carefully. If you have a proper reason, you can say no to a suggestion. Write the reason and the evidence, and thank the examiner for the point.
• It stays short. Many pages of prose are hard to check. A three-column table (comment, response, location) is much easier for the examiner.

You answer journal reviewers in the same way. Our guide to responding to reviewer comments gives worked examples. Remember that in the viva they will ask about whatever you changed. While preparing, go through our list of common PhD viva questions.

Even if you come to know who the examiner is, don’t contact that person directly. Doing so to discuss about thesis evaluation is misconduct as per Anna University’s research conduct rules. Clause 7.7 of its R2025 regulations is even stricter. If the scholar or the supervisor contacts the examiners about the evaluation report, the supervisor loses supervisorship for five years.