In real life, copying gets you expelled from college

Aamir Khan as Rancho in the film 3 Idiots managed to go scot-free after helping steal a question paper from the college principal’s room.

Aamir Khan as Rancho in the film 3 Idiots managed to go scot-free after helping steal a question paper from the college principal’s room.

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In real life, Naresh Malhotra (name changed), a second-year B Tech student was not so lucky. His college — Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology — expelled him and Delhi High Court upheld the decision.

On the night of April 23, 2009, Malhotra and two other students stole into the room of the coordinator of exams and got hold of the test paper on Theory of Computation, to be held the next day, from a computer.

Malhotra claimed innocence before the college. “I wanted to report the matter but never had the guts to do so,” he said. But the college was not convinced.

After an internal inquiry, the college senate recommended expulsion of all three on April 28 and gave them the option to withdraw from the college. The others withdrew, but Malhotra decided to challenge the expulsion.

“(Malhotra) stood guard when the others were copying and thus was an equal participant,” a bench of acting chief justice M B Lokur and justice Mukta Gupta.