Tampering of law student's marks rocks Kerala assembly

Thiruvananthapuram, March 16 : The Kerala assembly Tuesday witnessed uproarious scenes and a walkout by the opposition over the alleged tampering of marks of law students, details of which are said to have been leaked by a Kerala University official who is the wife of the deputy leader of opposition.

Sulekha, the university's controller of exams, is said to have discovered that marks of an LL.B final year student were raised from 34 to 44 in the Public International Law and Human Rights paper. Sulekha is the wife of deputy leader of Congress in the assembly G.Karthikeyan.

Congress legislator P.C.Vishnunadh moved an adjournment motion on the issue immediately after question hour but Speaker K. Radhakrishnan ruled that since Education Minister M.A.Baby was out of station, attending a function in which Kerala Governor R.S.Gavai was taking part, the motion could not be taken up.

This irked the opposition and Leader of Opposition Oommen Chandy said as per the convention of the house, if a minister was absent some other minister could give a reply as the government had a collective responsibility.

This was opposed by Minister for Parliamentary Affairs M. Vijayakumar, who said the question of collective responsibility did not arise on this issue.

"The education minister has taken leave of absence from the speaker. Moreover, to reply to an issue in less than an hour for a minister not handling the department is not an easy task," said Vijayakumar.

But Chandy remained adamant and said what Vijayakumar pointed out did not go with the tradition of the house.

"We also have been in government and we also have been absent from the assembly at times, but we handed over the responsibility to other ministers. Any minister can get the required information in an hour's time to give a reply on an issue. What happened today is a black day in the history of the assembly," Chandy said, leading the opposition out of the house.

Later speaking to IANS, Vishnunadh said early this month a senior official of the Kerala University on perusal of certain records found that the marks list of students had been tampered with.

"In the answer for Public International Law and Human Rights paper of final year LL.B course, a student had got 34 marks and this was marked on the counterfoil of the answer sheet. But in the tabulation sheet, he was found to have got 44 marks. On seeing this, the controller of examination called for the answer sheet and found that the student's actual marks were 34. It was also found that an error of this nature was spotted in the case of another student as well," said Vishnunadh.

Earlier, during a meeting of the Kerala University Syndicate, members belonging to the Student Federation of India - the student wing of the ruling CPI-M - accused Sulekha of leaking details of the incident.

"Our student activists who staged a protest march to the office of the university, yesterday (Monday) are now in jail. We demand a thorough investigation into the scam by an external agency because the credibility of the university is at stake," added Vishnunadh.