E-Paper
Decide copycats? cases within three months: HC
THE ALLAHABAD HIGH COURT, while taking a serious view of the delay in disposal of cases of alleged unfair means in exams, which jeopardise students? career, has directed all universities of the State to decide such cases within three months. The three months shall be counted from the date of the incident of copying or from the last date on which the examination, in which the incident had taken, came to a close.
THE ALLAHABAD HIGH COURT, while taking a serious view of the delay in disposal of cases of alleged unfair means in exams, which jeopardise students’ career, has directed all universities of the State to decide such cases within three months.
The three months shall be counted from the date of the incident of copying or from the last date on which the examination, in which the incident had taken, came to a close.
Enumerating other guidelines, which are to be followed by the universities across the State, Justice SN Srivastava said, “The chargesheet so issued, must contain definite charges expressed with clarity whether the student actually used unfair means or attempted to use unfair means and other allegations”.
Besides, the chargesheet should also mention with clarity in the charges as to which of the offending material was used by the student while attempting a particular question and from which place the material used for copying was recovered.
The court also directed that the authority concerned must be held responsible for serving personally the chargesheet. In case, the chargesheet, so issued, is not received by the student concerned, it would be deemed that no chargesheet had been served to the student and in that event, benefit would accrue in favour of the student and the authority concerned would be held responsible for spoiling the career of a student.
“The offending material, if found from the possession of the student or from a place accessible to the student, must bear signatures of the student concerned and if the student refuses to sign the offending material/paper recovered from his possession, such refusal must find mention in the charge-sheet”, the Court directed.
The court further directed that the order in this connection shall be informed with reasons and no printed form would be used by the authority as had happened in the case in hand.
The court directed that the chargesheet shall be framed separately, with requisite details in each case and no printed form would be used by the authority.
The court passed this order while allowing the writ petition (no-69970 of 2005) filed by AK Tripathi.
In the present case, the petitioner, a student of Chhatrapati Sahu Ji Mahraj University, Kanpur Nagar, was charged with using unfair means in the course of attempting the answers of question paper -III - of Economics, while taking BA III year examination. He alleged that he lost his two years due to the non-disposal of the case of unfair means.
Allowing his petition, the court set aside the order dated July 25, issued by CSMU, Kanpur, by which the exam of the petitioner was quashed.
Passing this verdict, the Court observed, “It is indeed shocking that the chargesheet was never served to the petitioner and subsequently, reply submitted by the petitioner after obtaining duplicate chargesheet was not taken into reckoning. It can well be said that the indifferent and arbitrary attitude of the authorities resulted in spoiling two precious years of the petitioner”.
