Principal, students grilled over paper leak

‘Nabbed College Staffers Sacked’

S Ahmed Ali TNN 

April 9,2014
Mumbai: The police probing the April 4 TYBCom Marketing and Human Resources paper leak questioned KM Agrawal College principal Anita Manna and
15 students on Tuesday.
    The 15 collegians reportedly received the paper 45 minutes before the exam. The grilling took place at the crime branch office in Andheri.
Manna denied her role but admitted that there was “negligence to check the process”. She told cops that senior clerk Rajendra Borade (43) and IT coordinator Rajkumar Mishra (35) have been sacked for their alleged involvement in the malpractice. On Monday, Mishra, Borade and two students, Vishal More (Agrawal College) and Pratik Mehta (Birla College) were arrested.
    All the accused have been booked under IPC sections for criminal breach of trust, stealing and the Maharashtra Prevention of Malpractices at University and Board. They were remanded in police custody till April 11. “Most of the students said since they had received a photocopy of the exam paper on a cellphone messaging service, they forwarded it assuming it would be helpful to their peers. We are scrutinizing whether or not any of them received any monetary benefit,” said a police officer.
    Several students have told the police that Borade, who has put in around 12 years of service in Kalyan’s Agrawal College, was popular because he passed on “confidential information”. “Students have claimed that he used to charge money to reveal scores before they were announced,” said another officer.
    “Mishra joined Agarwal College two years ago. It appears that Borade convinced Mishra to be part of the racket and promised him Rs 2,000 for each paper,” he added. 
    Police are quizzing Borade to ascertain whether or not he had leaked other exam papers in the past. Under university rules, the principal and IT coordinator of each college are the two nodal officers appointed by the board to coordinate the distribution of exam papers. “The university sends the paper in encrypted format and separately sends passwords to these two coordinators,” said an official. 
One month on, engg pupils yet to get revised marksheets 
Mumbai: Some of the seventh semester engineering students, who were erroneously marked absent for the exam, are yet to get their revised results. Nearly a month ago, these students got their original marksheets in which they were erroneously marked absent. The students, who are yet to get their revised marksheets, have managed to get good scores in GATE and claim that they need to submit their seventh-semester scores for admissions to postgraduate courses. “If I submit my current score card, which marks me absent, it will show that I have a live allowed to keep term (ATKT) and I might lose out on a seat,” a chemical engineering student said. A principal of an engineering college said the university was prompt in correcting the results of the first semester students. “Several first semester students, who failed initially, passed with good scores. Some of the results in the seventh semester are still pending,” said the principal. Dean of technology S K Ukrande said all the results were revised and released by the university. “I will check with the examination house to see if anyone’s result is still pending,” Ukrande said. The outgoing controller of examination, Padma Deshmukh, said, “All the results were revised and uploaded on the website in two lots. These might be stray cases. They should approach the university through their respective colleges.”—Yogita Rao MU takes steps T he paper leak episode at KM Agrawal College in Kalyan has forced the University of Mumbai to depute an observer and an IT officer to oversee the examination on Wednesday. The board of examinations will decide whether the college should remain an exam centre. There was no clarity on the action to be taken on SPDT Lions Juhu College and Indira Gandhi College, where about 700 students wrote the paper that had leaked. TNN

R Mishra; (top) R Borade