Dean engineers marks scam

Though the vice-chancellor has consistently refused to conduct even a preliminary inquiry a year after the matter was reported to him, the Director of College and University Development Department, V S Lomte, has now penned a vitriolic letter, reprimanding the faculty members for the protest they staged at a meeting held in August 1998 over the issue. The letter, dated November 13, is however being viewed as an attempt to intimidate the faculty mambers and smother anyfuture protests.

Faculty members told The Indian Express that it is quite clear that the vice-chancellor, the controller of examinations and the director of the BUCD have colluded with each other and the only way to nail the culprits is to file a public interest litigation in court.

Vice-Chancellor Dr Nakade told The Indian Express: 8220;I do not approve of the language used in the director8217;s letter and I will warn him to henceforth refrain from using such words. But I shall not ask him to withdraw the letter.8221; Faculty members say the stock reply Dr Nakde uses to counter demands for the dean8217;s resignation is that there is no legal provision to remove him.

Controversy broke in March 1996, when Dean Havre decided to introduce the revaluation system. However, none of the faculty members were taken into confidence, one of the members M M Dharwadkar told The Indian Express. Academicians at the university say the re-evaluation system in fact been discarded in favour of the moderationsystem as it provided an easy to manipulate marks. But when Havre re-introduced it, the controller of examinations, Dr M Gumaste, gave the go-ahead despite the drawbacks. No wonder, a whopping 250 students who had applied for re-evaluation found that their marks had been augmented, sometimes substantially.

According to Prof S D Sane, a faculty member, the abrupt and phenomenal increase in marks after re-evaluation was provocation enough for him to get suspicious. 8220;Hence, the faculty decided to ask the vice-chancellor to inquire into the matter.8221;

But never mind an inquiry, the vice-chacellor and the controller of examinations even refused to give a college-wise list of students who were allotted additional marks after re-evaluation, points out Sane, who teaches at the Government College of Engineering here.

Also, one reason why Havre was able to have his way is that he actually hand-picked examiners who then did the needful for him, faculty members say. There are instances where some examiners had noconnection with the course material they were asked to re-evaluate, the faculty members stated in the memorandum to the vice-chancellor.

Havre, himself, admits to this but told The Indian Express: 8220;That was bound to happen given the dearth of examiners at the university8217;s disposal.8221; But his justification for personally ferrying answersheets to the residences of examiners in Pune is not convincing. First, he denies it was his decision to carry the sheets in person. 8220;It was on the instructions of the vice-chancellor that I did it. When I apprised the vice-chancellor of the difficulty in getting appropriate examiners and the consequent delay that would cause, he suggested that I personally accompany the university official deputed to take the sheets to the examiners,8221; he says.

In the meantime, the vice-chancellor has also received a memorandum from a visiting professor from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, Dr T K Basu, who has levelled serious allegations against Havre. He alsorecommends that Havre be dissociated from the panel of examiners for the Master of Engineering examination.

The professor has pointed out that Havre, in his capacity as dean of the faculty, got himself appointed on the panel of examiners evaluating post-graduate students on subjects as diverse as Image Processing, Pattern Recognition, Windows Programming and Advanced Instrumentation. Worse, Dr Basu alleges, Havre had demanded a bribe from students taking the viva test.

Since there is every likelihood of students encountering Havre in any of the interview panels for selection of candidates for various teaching posts, there is no way they can challenge his demand, the professor stated in his memorandum.