KU senate to decide on recalling certificates

MARKS MANIPULATION

KU senate to decide on recalling certificates

TIMES-NEWS NETWORK

Thiruvananthapuram:  25.08.2021

The Kerala University senate meeting scheduled on Thursday would consider an amendment proposal to empower the varsity to recall the certificates issued by it if they were later found to have issued wrongly.

The amendment said the university was necessitated by the issuance of certificates to several students after they got excess marks allegedly due to error in the tabulation software. In 2019, 23 students were issued degree certificates by gifting them additional marks. It was found out that the user ID and password of a deputy registrar was misused to manipulate mark list. The deputy registrar was then suspended and a section officer who was identified as the kingpin behind such manipulations was later dismissed from service. Though the university had initially sought a crime branch inquiry to the ‘inadvertent awarding of marks’, the varsity is yet to hand over the documents to the probe agency. The university has been facing severe criticism for the delay in annulling the certificates issued to the 23 students.

The agenda of the special meeting of the senate plans to pass amendment in the Kerala University first statutes so that “degrees, diplomas, titles, etc, may be recalled at any time after it is made where evidence is placed before the syndicate to show that any person whom such degree, diploma, certificate, title, etc, was awarded by mistake of fact....provided that every person affected by the recalling of the degree, diploma, certificate, title shall be given sufficient opportunity as determined by the syndicate to complete the prescribed course of study and pass the prescribed examination if the situation warrants correction and reissue of the degree, diploma, certificate, title, etc. and if otherwise the syndicate may take such decision as it deem fit,” it said.