Thursday, August 2, 2018

Marks-for-money racket at Anna University unearthed

DVAC FIR On Ex-Controller Of Exams, 9 Profs


Siddharth.Prabhakar@timesgroup.com 02.08.2018

Tens of thousands of engineering graduates from Anna University might have got their degrees by bribing professors who re-evaluated their answer sheets, an investigation by the directorate of vigilance and anti-corruption (DVAC) suggests. The agency filed an FIR on Tuesday naming former controller of examinations G V Uma and nine professors for rigging answer sheets for money.

TOI reported in May 2016 that 40% of candidates who applied for re-evaluation since 2011 had got more marks. The DVAC probe found students paid ₹10,000 as bribe for each re-evaluated paper of the April-May 2017 exams. Some 3,02,380 students had applied for re-evaluation, of which 73,733 students passed and 16,636 students got higher marks after the recheck. Between 2015 and 2018, Uma was in charge of exams and re-evaluation of papers for the university’s 530 affiliated colleges which annually admit 1.5 lakh students. The FIR said Uma, along with assistant professors P Vijayakumar and R Sivakumar took money to forge answer scripts and increase marks.

The other seven accused are examiners responsible for coordinating and conducting the reevaluation process at the University College of Engineering, Tindivanam, where the scam was uncovered. “When they smelled trouble, they destroyed a large number of answer scripts,” said an official. The officers, however, managed to get around 100 scripts as evidence.

Uma, meanwhile, said the charges were false. “I’m true to my conscience ... God is with me,” she said. DVAC has slapped cheating and forgery charges, and seized property documents after raids at houses of Uma, Vijaykumar and Sivakumar.

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