FIRST DAY: Students and parents awaiting their turn during engineering counselling at JNTU in Hyderabad on Wednesday. — Photo: K. Ramesh Babu

HYDERABAD: On the first day of engineering counselling, officials not only saw the toppers but also a student submitting a fake rank card, a rare case in the history of engineering counselling in the State.

The student, G. Keerti Sandhya, however claimed that the card was given to her by the director of a coaching institute in Rajahmundry where she took coaching for Eamcet. Officials are now in a quandary over the matter debating about lodging a police complaint. They felt that the girl could have been misled by the training institute. Sandhya, a student from Tanuku claimed to have secured 79th rank.

No match

But the personal details in the counselling records did not match with her record and officials had rejected her claim. She carried a rank card (HT No. 1553350) that looked distorted right from the word go.

Her name was mis-spelt while the rank written in the word form was also not in tune with the procedure adopted by the EAMCET Committee. There was also a difference in the font used for entering personal details and rank.

When the rank was fed into the computer, it showed the result of T. Hari Haranath Reddy with a score of 138 marks. Interestingly, the card carried by the girl had a score of 148 marks. The variation between rank and score was another factor that led to suspicion. "For 148 marks the rank should have been below 30. It is a fake card and someone has altered every detail to mislead the girl and cheat the counselling officials," said K. Raghunath, Camp Officer, EAMCET-2006 (admissions).

Interestingly, the girl was not carrying the original hall-ticket. She had maintained that it was taken by her coaching institute. She had approached the institute when she got the rank card delivered by post to her address, to clarify about the name of Hari Haranath Reddy.

The card had the rank of 97,000. The institute director allegedly took the rank card promising to write to JNTU and get the discrepancies corrected. Later, he gave her the card with 79th rank. "This is what I got from the institute," she told The Hindu .

Internal enquiry on

She later approached the EAMCET Convenor L.V.A.R Sarma, who also maintained that the card was fake. "As per EAMCET records, the hall-ticket number is that of Hari Haranath Reddy," he said stating that an internal enquiry was on. Interestingly, the original rank-holder did not attend the counselling making the issue further intriguing.

Officials feel he might have got a better opportunity in AIEEE or IIT, which is the normal case with toppers.

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