PUDUCHERRY: Principal District and Sessions Judge and Special Judge, P Velmurugan convicted V Prabhakaran, Assistant Professor of Pondicherry Engineering College (PEC) to two years Rigorous Imprisonment (RI) each in two cases filed by the CBI.
The Anti-Corruption Branch of CBI, Chennai investigated a case in Crime No RC 65/08 against V Prabhakaran, Assistant Professor of Pondicherry Engineering College and two engineering students namely P Agilan and N Perumal on the allegation of awarding marks that were not in commensurate with the answers written by them while evaluating their answer papers.
In 2007, V Prabhakaran was nominated as an examiner for evaluation of answer script of BE/BTech examination held in the month of Nov/Dec 2007, he entered into a criminal conspiracy with B Agilan and N Perumal, students of said college. He abused his official position by striking off the originally evaluated marks of 24 awarded to Agilan in Mechanics of Solid-II and inflated the marks to 48. The assistant professor awarded marks for questions not answered by Agilan.
In another instance, he inflated the original awarded marks of 22 to the student N Perumal in the same subject to 42, knowing that the marks awarded by him are not in commensurate with the answers written by the student. The accused was fully aware that the marks awarded would be used for declaration of result and the inflated marks would ensure that the students had qualified the examination.
After completing the investigation, two separate charge sheets were filed by the CBI against two different instances under Sections 120-B IPC r/w 420, 468, 468 r/w 471 IPC and 13(2) r/w 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.
On completion of trial of both the cases, the accused person V Prabhakaran, was convicted and sentenced to undergo Rigorous Imprisonment for 2 years in two cases each, and a total fine of `40,000 has been imposed on him. The two students, P Agilan and N Perumal were acquitted.