Student doctored screen recording of response sheet, NTA tells HC

The court went on to seek that the findings and logs of NIC and TCS, as provided to NTA over email, be put on its record by way of an affidavit by Thursday. It is expected to hear the matter again on June 1.

The student, with a credible academic track record – as noted by the court – had cleared Class X Board examination with 90 per cent marks and Class XI science stream examination with 97 per cent marks. He also scored 91 per cent in his Class XII Board exams.

The student appeared for the JEE Mains examination this year. As per the response sheet uploaded on the official website, which he downloaded at 7.03 am on April 20, the student had attempted all the 75 questions. However, when he downloaded the response sheet a second time at 1.15 pm the same day, it indicated that he had not attempted a single question.

The student had moved HC claiming that a technical glitch could have wiped off the answers attempted by him. Submitting that the JEE Advanced exams are scheduled for June 4 and the form filling for the same ends on May 7, he had sought directions from the HC. The court on May 5 had permitted him to file the application for JEE Advanced and directed IIT-Guwahati, which is conducting the exams this year, to accept his application.

The court had, however, added that the direction to the IIT is “without prejudice to rights and contentions of respective parties and will be subject to further orders passed by this court”.

Advocate K V Shelat, appearing for NTA, told the court of Justice S V Pinto on Wednesday that while it is undisputed from video recordings of the test centre that the student sat through the three-hour exam, the screen recording as shared by the petitioner — the student’s father — of the student downloading the response sheet on April 20 at 7.03 am, appears to be doctored.

Shelat said, “With regard to screen recording, recording properties show it was recorded on April 20, at 3.07 afternoon… it says media was created on April 20 3.07 pm… Screen recording does not provide date and time. Taskbar has not been covered in the recording because taskbar usually shows time of recording. Screen recording does not show mouse or screen cursor movement. These omissions raise serious doubts on the bonafide of the petitioner… It is reiterated that the copy of the response sheet (from 7.03 am) is not on the record of NTA at all and the same appears to be forged and manipulated from the original document… He must have manipulated from the answer key we provide along with the response sheet.”

Advocate Dhaval Vyas, appearing on behalf of the petitioner, suggested the court to direct for forensic examination of the computer on which the student had downloaded the response sheet at 7.03 am as well as of the screen recording. Vyas also pointed out that following the second response sheet downloaded at 1.15 pm, the student had emailed NTA on its official ID at 1.38 pm, attaching the two response sheets downloaded, and thus, a doctored screen recording at 3.07 pm would not arise.

The NTA also told HC that it has been informed by TCS that the candidate logged in on April 12, visited 90 questions and did not select any of the options but clicked on ‘save and next’, hence, his recorded response did not have any of the options (for answer to a question, selected).

“TCS says no error in recording candidate responses. Audit log clearly indicates no questions attempted. For other candidates present in the same drive as the candidate, we can see their responses in the audit log. This audit log is recorded at the exam centre and simultaneously recorded at TCS. There is no error in syncing candidate data from venue (exam centre) and TCS data centre (at Mumbai),” Shelat added.