THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala University has revoked the suspension of the deputy registrar after two sets of internal inquiries by the varsity found a software error as the sole reason for the moderation marks fiasco. Deputy Registrar A R Renuka was suspended pending an inquiry on November 13. The charge against Renuka was that she shared the system password for access to the exam software with employees of the university’s examination section.
Glaring anomalies were detected in the marks of over 727 candidates following the awarding of moderation for career-related courses. In the wake of the fiasco, the varsity decided to revoke the degree certificate issued to 390 candidates. “The vice-chancellor has revoked the suspension after the inquiries found that no deliberate irregularities were committed by the deputy registrar or staff of the examination wing,” stated the varsity in a press release.
However, it is learnt that top varsity officials were under immense pressure from employees’ unions to reinstate the deputy registrar. A high-level inquiry committee, headed by Pro Vice-Chancellor P P Ajayakumar, and an expert committee, led by Syndicate member K G Gopchandran, were constituted by the varsity after the moderation fiasco came to light. Both panels found glaring security flaws in the software despite numerous instructions being issued to the computer centre since 2010 to rectify it.
The varsity said it has taken measures to make the exam software foolproof and to modernise it with help from Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC). The huge variation in marks following the awarding of moderation will be examined and new mark lists will be issued to the candidates concerned, said the varsity.
Varsity clarifies
Kerala University, in a release, also clarified that the mark lists unearthed from the house of a gold smuggling accused did not belong to the varsity. “Those mark lists were fake ones in the name of University Institute of Technology, Kuravankonam,” said the varsity.The varsity said the registrar has submitted a complaint to the police to probe how fake mark lists were found in the house of the smuggling accused.
Marklists recovered
Last month, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) had confiscated unfilled mark lists of the varsity from the residence of Vishnu Somasundaram, the key accused in the gold smuggling case.