LU paper leak: Varsity cancels four exams on internal committee’s recommendation

Even as the police investigation into the alleged law exam paper leak at the Lucknow University was in progress, the varsity’s decision to finally cancel four papers

Even as the police investigation into the alleged law exam paper leak at the Lucknow University was in progress, the varsity’s decision to finally cancel four papers -- on the recommendation of its internal committee -- suggested that the integrity of the examination process had been compromised, said members of the LU fraternity on Sunday.

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To recall, soon after allegations of paper leak surfaced, LU decided to cancel all examinations of the law department. However, after students protested against this decision, the varsity said it would wait for the report of the internal committee (IC) before deciding how many papers needed to be cancelled.

On Friday, after receiving the IC’s report, the university administration announced that four papers of LLB third semester exams were to be deemed cancelled and would be held afresh according to a new schedule.

The decision was taken in an emergency meeting called by the exam department, a day after the IC submitted its report to vice-chancellor Alok Kumar Rai. Papers with exam codes 2620, 2621, 2622 and 2623 were cancelled, said officials.

“The committee matched the questions that were heard in the leaked audio clips with those that appeared in the question papers. It was found that several questions in the papers were discussed in the alleged phone conversations between two professors and a law student. After this, the committee made the recommendation to cancel these four exams,” said a university official on condition of anonymity.

To recall, a three-member committee, headed by executive council member and former professor SK Dwivedi was formed by the then V-C SK Shukla, following allegations of paper leak on December 11, 2019. Audio clips, reportedly of conversations between LLB third semester student Richa Mishra and two professors of the law department, had gone viral on the social media.

The IC was tasked with assessing if the question paper was leaked and recommend ways to prevent such incidents in future.

The university administration also lodged an FIR against Richa Mishra, assistant professor of law department Ashok Kumar and another unidentified person in the matter.

The special task force (STF) of police that was asked to look into the matter on the suggestion of chief minister Yogi Adityanath is expected to submit its report to the state government soon.