The Hindu : Front Page : Answer sheets scandal snowballs

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, May 09, 2005

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Answer sheets scandal snowballs

K. Ramachandran and Sandhya Soman

Two more students held; University officials suspect insider role

CHENNAI: The probe into the `answer sheet scam' expanded on Sunday, with Anna University discovering that two more groups of students from Chennai's suburbs had been involved in switching answer sheets of semester examinations before evaluation.

University officials, who are helping the Central Crime Branch of Greater Chennai police in the wide-ranging probe, do not rule out greater inside involvement.

The police on Sunday arrested two more students of Valliammai Engineering College, near here.

They were identified as Narendra Raghava (21) and Ramesh Kumar (21) from Guduvanchery, final year Electronics and Communications Engineering students. Seven students and three daily wagers of Anna University were arrested on Saturday. On Sunday, all 12 were remanded to judicial custody for 15 days.

"I have called for a State-wide inquiry to see whether every single bundle of answer papers of all colleges in the current examination is intact or not. We have found that two groups of students of SRM Engineering College (sections affiliated to the university) and Crescent Engineering college are involved in similar incidents," Vice Chancellor E. Balagurusamy told The Hindu. He said these two instances also came in the zone under the Madras Institute of Technology, Chromepet.

Enquiries with the university show that the students involved had several "arrears papers". "It is clearly an attempt by people desperate to complete the course," one senior administrator said. The students, according to the police, bribed the daily wagers to replace the answer sheets. The employees provided them unmarked answer sheets so they could rewrite the answers after the examination.

The police are on the lookout for a person named Vijayakumar, who allegedly set up the network between the students and the employees. "We have formed a special party to trace him," said the Assistant Commissioner of the Crime Branch, M. Anbumani.

University officials, explaining the sequence of events, said they received a few e-mails on May 5 alleging that answer sheets were being switched on the night the examinations got over and that students from a particular zone were involved. A probe immediately brought to light two or three discrepancies. First, the strings that held the answer sheets together were tampered with and the papers stapled. Then blank sheets, presumably left over from previous examinations or those removed from this year's stock, were inserted.

"Security markers showed that the first page (a data sheet) and the subsequent sheets were different in colour and in other respects. We have a dummy numbering system, as all other examining bodies do, to secure the identity of the candidates. The switch was done before the dummy number had been given, showing that it was an inside job," Prof. Balagurusamy said.

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