College panel to probe graft charge against professor

MUMBAI: A college in Goregaon has appointed a committee to investigate if one of their professors had demanded bribe from students to give them pass marks in exams.

MUMBAI: A college in Goregaon has appointed a committee to investigate if one of their professors had demanded bribe from students to give them pass marks in exams.

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A BA student of Patkar-Varade College in Goregaon had complained that an English professor had demanded money to clear his papers. The student also claimed that the professor, for the past several years, has been deliberately failing students and demanding money to give them pass marks.

The student said he failed in his first and second semester English exams. “After the third attempt, I applied to get a photocopy of my answer sheets. I found that the supplements attached to the main answer sheets were missing,” he said. He first took the exam in 2013.

He said that when he asked the professor about it, he asked him to pay Rs30,000 to get pass marks in the exam. When the student said he could not pay the amount, the professor allegedly demanded a mobile phone. “A girl had to mortgage her necklace to pay him,” he said.

The student said that he had submitted several “proofs” of bribery, including bank receipts of the payments but the college took no action and refused to accept his fourth semester assignment project. It took up the matter after some activists approached the college on September 27. “We have appointed an internal committee to investigate the allegations,” said Sharmistha Matkar, principal of the college.