CHENNAI:A day after marks-for-cash scandal rattled Anna University, G V Uma, former Controller of Examination of the university and prime accused in the case, told Express that it was she who took action against 1,040 examiners after huge deviations were found in the re-evaluated marks last year. The Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption on Tuesday booked Uma and nine other teaching faculty members of the university and various colleges on charges of awarding marks to students for a bribe of just Rs 10,000 per student.
Uma, now a professor in Information and Science department, said she was surprised by the case against her several months after the issue came to light. “Action was taken against 1,040 examiners, when we observed that there were large deviations in the marks after re-evaluation,” she said. The punishment for the delinquent examiners, who evaluated the answer scripts in August last, was that they would not be allowed to take part in evaluation of the university exam papers in subsequent years. However, even after knowing that there were large discrepancies in the re-evaluated marks, no action was taken by the university except against the 1,040 delinquent examiners. It was not clear if the answer scripts were again evaluated after abnormalities were noticed.
While there were five-six rounds of inquiry by the university, Uma said, the only reasons such as stress, negligence and other personal problems were cited by examiners. “We didn’t stumble on any case of bribery,” she claimed. Enquiries were conducted during her tenure, which ended in March.
When contacted by Express over the issue, MK Surappa, Vice-Chancellor of the university, said, “Administrative decision will be taken, based both on criminal investigation and what we find out (from our internal probe).” According to M Venkatesan, the present Controller of Examinations of the university, the vigilance officers seized old answer scripts from his office and asked for further details related to the case.
While the FIR filed by the DVAC alleged that Uma and other accused had gone to the extent of destroying the answer scripts to bury evidence, Uma claimed that during her tenure, she improved transparency in the system.
‘Made answer keys public for transparency’
“I made sure answer keys were made public so that students would know if they were graded unfairly. The number of students who applied for revaluation dropped significantly after I introduced this system,” she said. She added that University College of Engineering, Tindivanam was removed from the list of evaluation centres for 2018, after she observed that the incidence of marks discrepancy was higher from that centre.
When queried about the charges alleged by the DVAC against her, Uma said, “I did not violate any norms and I discharged my duty honestly.” She has served as the Controller of Exams between March 2015 and March 2018. A total of 3,02,380 students applied for revaluation between April and June, 2017, of whom 73,733 students have passed and 16,636 improved.