Court News

Order in murder case was due to ‘oversight’: sessions judge

22/10/2019, STAFF REPORTER, MADURAI

A sessions judge submitted a report to the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Monday explaining that his order convicting the accused in a murder case under Section 302 of the IPC was due to oversight.

A Division Bench of Justices S. Vaidyanathan and N. Anand Venkatesh took cognisance of the explanation submitted by the Additional District and Sessions Judge, Virudhunagar, and observed that after going through the sessions court judgement, it could be seen that the sessions judge did not intend to convict them under Section 302 (Murder) of the IPC.

The court said it was an inadvertent mistake and instead had the judge convicted the accused under Section 304 (1) (Punishment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder), things would have fallen in place and added that to err was human.

The court adjourned the hearing till October 22 to decide if it could continue to hear the appeal filed by the accused.

Earlier, the court was taken aback by the order of the lower court that had awarded jail terms of 10 years and seven years for the accused after convicting them under Section 302.

The HC Bench had observed that Section 302 of the IPC specifically provided that whoever committed the offence of murder should be punished with death sentence or imprisonment for life and should also be liable to pay a fine. It had sought an explanation from the sessions judge.

Other universities

MBBS Admission Fraud: KGMU fires its Microbiology Associate Professor
 
NewsPublished on October 21, 2019 |

Lucknow: The authorities at King George’s Medical University (KGMU) have terminated the services of its Microbiology Department’s Associate professor, who was arrested after his name configured in the MBBS admission fraud 5 years ago.

The medical teacher has now been found guilty of duping MBBS aspirants; by the executive council of KGMU which has passed the termination orders. He was earlier suspended along with a Pharmacology professor by the medical college administration.

The fraud had come to light in the year 2014 following FIRs lodged in Lucknow and Noida that named two faculty members, a staff and a student that they had duped MBBS course aspirant, who was intending to get admission at KGMU.

The racket was reported to be operating right on the medical university’s campus with even rooms of doctors being used.

The complainant in the case had lodged an FIR also mentioning the name of a person, who claimed to be an admission consultant and accused him of duping him of Rs 18.35 lakh by promising admission of his daughter in KGMU.

It was stated in the complaint that the “consultant” held a meeting inside the cabin of associate professor in pharmacology department, KGMU. According to police, the racketeers had exploited confusion over admission in 65 MBBS seats in KGMU to lure the candidates. The MCI had that year barred the medical college from taking admission on these seats but the university had later got a stay from the court, stated a 2014 report by TOI.

Further, taking cognizance of the scam, the KGMU had constituted a fact-finding committee. Now, with the investigation into the case being over, the executive council of KGMU terminated the services of the Associate professor Microbiology.

According to a recent report by TOI, in its recently issued press statement, the KGMU council stated:

“In 2014, the Combined Pre-Medical Test (CPMT), a gateway to admissions to government and private medical colleges of the state, was conducted by KGMU. The candidates who did not get admission lodged an FIR against him in Lucknow and Noida following which he was arrested. KGMU formed a committee to probe the allegations and suspended Singh from services. The inquiry report submitted recently found him guilty and hence, his services have been terminated”

Court News

Architecture student not allowed to attend classes, moves court

TNN | TNN | Oct 23, 2019, 04:19 IST

Chennai: A first year BArch student of MEASI Academy of Architecture has knocked the doors of the Madras HC saying that the authorities are yet to approve her admission though she has been duly admitted through a lapsed seat within the cut-off date of September 30.

G Niveditha, who has been attending classes, was asked by the management not to do so all of a sudden.

Though she could not get admission to the institution, she said she didn’t join any other college and waited for the counselling to get over. In the meantime, Jeysuriya, who got admission under the government quota, decided not to join the course and the vacant seat was offered to the petitioner as lapsed seat.

She joined the college by paying the fee on August 29 and began attending classes. The college management also communicated her admission to the director of technical education and Anna University uploaded her name on the list. However, the management suddenly asked her not to attend classes. The demand draft she had submitted for the course fee was returned by the college as her admission was not approved by the director of technical education.


Claiming that there is no justification for the director to deny her admission as there was absolutely no irregularity in conversion of the lapsed seat to a management seat, the petitioner has approached the court to direct the authorities to approve her admission and permit her to continue with her studies.

The hearing of the plea that came up before Justice G Jayachandran is to be continued on Wednesday.

Court News

Bus day: HC asks student to plant 10 saplings

Chennai:

TheMadrashighcourt has directed a law college student to plant 10 saplings on his college campus, ensure that they are watered at least for a month and report it to the principal as a condition to quash an FIR registered against him for creating nuisance by participating in a bus day celebration.

Justice M S Ramesh passed the direction while allowing the plea moved by E Durai Raj, a second year law student of Dr Ambedkar Government Law College, Pudupakkam.

As the petitioner is a student whose career should not be affected in future and on account of his involvement in a criminal case, the court is of the view that the proceedings could be quashed with a condition that the petitioner undertake social service, so that the ends of justice could be secured, Justice Ramesh said. According to the petitioner, he was accused of offences under Sections 143, 290 of IPC and an FIR was registered against him for allegedly involving in bus day celebration of ‘Pachaiyappa College, 47A – ICF route’. The petitioner submitted that he was wrongly implicated in the case as he is a student of government law college and not of Pachaiyappa’s College. He produced his college identity card as proof for his submission.

Recording his submission, the judge said though the petitioner is a student of law college, his presence during the celebration near Pachaiyappa’s College was not disputed and passed the order. TNN

Other universities

Anna varsity to conduct pilot study for evaluation method

The exercise is aimed at curbing malpractices in assessing candidates

23/10/2019,

R. SUJATHA, CHENNAI

The university has decided to scan the answer sheets, while corrections will be done online.
This year, Anna University will conduct a pilot study for a new method of evaluation.

In a bid to prevent malpractices in evaluation, the university has decided to scan the answer sheets, while corrections will be done online.

According to university officials, the pilot study will be conducted using the answer sheets of students of just one year from University departments.

The issue of valuation/revaluation had rocked the University after an investigation by the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti Corruption Wing in 2018 found a former Controller of Examination (CoE) and a couple of senior professors to be involved in the bribe-for-pass scam.

The investigation found several methods of malpractice, including retaining all the identifying details of the candidates with the University CoE office and permitting students to enter their details in sheets other than those provided for the same.

The Tamil Nadu State Council for Higher Education was then assigned to develop a fool-proof method. The council came up with a three-part mechanism to maintain the candidate’s secrecy. The first part had a QR code to encrypt candidate’s details, including the register number, degree with branch, exam date and session, subject name, total pages written, question paper code, candidate’s signature and the name and signature of the invigilator with date. The key to the code would be sent to a different university and would be available only at the time of release of the results.

The second part had the first evaluation details including the Optic Mark Recognition table for evaluation, QR code, candidates details, the question paper code, exam date and session, and name and signature of the evaluator and chief evaluator with the date. The third part had the degree with branch and subject code, the exam date and session, question paper and QR code. The council also included a fourth and fifth part to provide for revaluation.

Officials involved said the method was devised for all the State Universities but not implemented despite approval from the then higher education secretary Sunil Paliwal.

The AI method

Last week, Tata Consultancy Services, launched an artificial intelligence-run command centre to monitor its exam centres in the country. Its method involved using information gleaned of past malpractices patterns to issue live alerts. It would track movement and devices carried by candidates to an exam centre through live CCTV feed and predict the readiness of a centre based on past incidents and current life feeds of events in the exam centre.

The officials, however, did not respond to questions about its feasibility in university exams or competitive national exams.

Other states

No govt. jobs for those with over 2 children

23/10/2019, GUWAHATI

Two years after it adopted a population policy, the Assam Cabinet on Monday decided to make government jobs out of bounds for people with more than two children. The policy will come into effect from January 1, 2021.

Train info

Smart watches to make Chennai Metro rides easier

Automatic gates will read info off chips embedded in wrist watches

23/10/2019,

SUNITHA SEKAR, CHENNAI

Standing in line for a ticket and cumbersome recharge processes for travel/trip cards may soon be a thing of the past for commuters of Chennai Metro Rail.

Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL) and watch manufacturers Titan have come together to make watches that will allow commuters to just flash their wrist watches at the automatic ticketing gates and walk into the trains.

According to CMRL officials, they have held discussions with Titan recently and are working to finalise the details of this project.

Prototypes ready

“These watches will have a chip inserted underneath the dial so the gates can detect the chip once a commuter shows it. A few prototypes have been shown as examples for both genders. But quite a few issues, like the options for recharging the chips, need to be sorted out,” an official said. The exact details of the technology have also not been revealed.

The cost of these watches is likely to be in the range of ₹1,000-₹1,500, making them affordable to a larger section of people, another official said.

“A set of watches with a host of designs and models will be produced with the chip already inserted in it; it may be available in about six to eight months. But it is unlikely that a chip can be inserted in an existing watch or new watch that a customer picks up,” another source said.

Other issues to be ironed out include the fact that the working of the chip should not be hampered by embellishments on the watch.

Another source said the glitches in the automatic entry system would need to be sorted out before the smart watch plan was rolled out. At present, besides the CMRL travel and trip cards, commuters can use SBI debit-cum-smart cards to swipe and pay at the stations.

ILLUSTRATION: DEEPAK HARICHANDAN