The police on Monday took Dr K B Vedamurthy, former Syndicate member, into custody in connection with a fake marks card racket in Bangalore University.
B R Ravikanthe Gowda, DCP (Central), said Vedamurthy was being questioned for allegedly passing students after taking money from them.
Basavaraju and Gangadaraiah, daily wage employees at the evaluation and examination centre of the university, were arrested 10 days ago and revealed the names of university staffers involved in the racket. Based on their statements, police took Vedamurthy into custody and are looking for other suspects. “We don’t want to reveal anything more at the moment as we need to question the suspects thoroughly,” Ravikanthe Gowda said.
On April 12, Ulsoor Gate Police had registered a suo motu cheating case against Vedamurthy for his alleged involvement in changing the numbers in some marks cards.
Sources said Vedamurthy had been involved in the racket for three years and had been collecting `3,000 to `5,000 to alter the marks in each subject. For students who sought his help to pass all subjects, he charged `25,000. A majority of the students approaching him were from the B.Sc and B.Com streams.
The manipulation was done mostly during reevaluation. The authorities got suspicious after the number of students seeking reevaluation rose dramatically.
Dr B Thimme Gowda, vice-chancellor of Bangalore University (BU), told Express, “We will cooperate with the police.”
Vedamurthy was nominated to the Syndicate for three years by Governor H R Bhardwaj in 2010. Despite being the owner of a college affiliated to BU, he was appointed chairman of the Local Inquiry Committee during his tenure as Syndicate member. Vedamurthy had also unsuccessfully contested the 2013 Assembly elections from Chikmagalur as a KJP candidate. He owns Pushpagiri Education Trust, which runs Pushpagiri College of Management at Kachohalli. The college was blacklisted for exam malpractice during 2008-09.