Bengaluru: Terming the punishment imposed against an engineering student for malpractice during an examination as ‘lenient’, the Karnataka High Court has upheld an order to debar him for three years.
During June/July 2011 engineering examinations, a 22-year-old student at a college in Gulbarga was found guilty of inserting answer booklet written outside examination hall in place of the one written by him. He got this done with the connivance of two class-IV employees.
Following an inquiry by the Standing Committee against the student and two others he was found guilty. Further, he was punished with (a) Denial of Benefit of Performance of the Examinations conducted during June/July 2011 examinations (including arrear papers) (b) Debarred from appearing for Dec. 2011/Jan 2012, June/July 2012 and Dec 2012/Jan2013 examinations (c) Not permitted to attend the term work of higher semesters till the redeeming of punishments imposed (d) Change of Branch, Change of College, rejection of semester results, readmission are not permitted during and (e) Results announced if any stands withdrawn.
During the inquiry, all the three candidates had admitted that they had made arrangements to insert the answer booklets written outside the examination hall for the subjects - Signals and Systems, Field Theory and Fundamentals of CMOS VLSI.
The committee further observed, “They have further stated that, arrangements for such insertion were made through class IV employees of their institution by paying them Rs 20,000 each.” Though class IV employees were involved, the college examination authorities cannot be excused as they were responsible for the smooth conduct of university examinations, it added.
The student had approached the high court challenging the order. The court observed, “The malpractice committed is a serious one. The punishment imposed is a lenient one having regard to the nature of the malpractice. I find no ground warranting interference with the order,” and dismissed the petitions.
