Vipin Gupta,a chartered accountant in Kotkapura,had never fought the system for anything. He was used to reports of mass copying in some schools and even degree colleges in Punjab. Yet,on April 10,when his daughter Vatsa came crying out of the examination hall for the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) for Indian Institutes of Engineering (IITs),being held at Giani Zail Singh College of Engineering and Technology,Bathinda,and told him about invigilators aiding copying there,something inside him broke. My initial reaction was that of a father. I told her not to cry. But a bitterness was building up in me. IIT is a brand we Indians are proud of. The kind of status associated with it,the drive that children have to make it to IIT I felt all that must not be contaminated,or we will lose faith in it. Our children will lose one of the few institutions they truly look up to, Gupta told The Indian Express. This was the first competitive exam for Vatsa,a student of Class XII. Soon after the exam started,I saw the male invigilator blatantly helping the girl sitting in front of me,and also some other students. The other invigilator,a woman,ignored all this. Tears sprang to my eyes at the sickness of it all, said Vatsa. Vatsa wanted to protest but became apprehensive,thinking they would take their wrath out on her. Seeing her crying bitterly as she came out during mid-break,Gupta was shocked. She said to me,Papa wahan gandi waali cheating ho rahi hai. Hearing about it,Gupta went to some other parents at the centre. They didnt show much interest at my request to lodge a protest. So I went alone and complained to the team in charge. They assured me that action would be taken. After I came out,one of the persons outside said to me the system was rotten,and nothing could be done about it. Gupta refused to take it lying down. He looked up on the internet the mail addresses of the management teams conducting the JEE. The very next day he e-mailed letters to them about the cheating. The examination was being conducted by IIT Kanpur,and Gupta got a prompt response from the Director of IIT Kanpur. The Director said IIT Roorkee had been told to look into the complaint,since Bathinda was in its jurisdiction. Thereafter,Prof Sounak Kumar Chaudhury,faculty member of IIT Kanpur and Organising Chairman of JEE 2011,kept in touch with Gupta,and told him a fact-finding committee was investigating the matter. When the committee came here,they conducted a very thorough investigation. My daughter and I were also questioned, said Gupta. Based on the committees report,the engineering college has been blacklisted from conducting any examination for the IIT system. The principal and the two invigilators have also been debarred from any future academic collaborations for aiding mass copying. Talking to The Indian Express,Prof Chaudhury said that he does not recall such a complaint of cheating being received regarding any other JEE examination centre. The complaint was received only from Punjab. Action has been taken against the Bathinda college based on the report of the fact-finding committee. Now further investigation will be conducted to look into the matter in its entirety," he said.
