The Crime Branch (CB) team probing the case registered in connection with the mark list row at Maharaja’s College here on a complaint filed by P.M. Arsho, State secretary of the Students Federation of India (SFI), on Monday recorded the statements of the petitioner, the Controller of Examination of the college, and the technical officer of the National Informatics Centre (NIC).
Mr. Arsho, who gave his statement at the CB office, had lodged the complaint alleging a conspiracy behind the college issuing a mark list showing that he had passed a postgraduate examination that he never took.
The case is being probed by the District Crime Branch led by Assistant Commissioner Pious George.
Five accused
A First Information Report (FIR) had been registered against five persons. Vinod Kumar, coordinator of the Department of Archaeology, is the first accused while V.S. Joy, Principal, is the second accused. Aloysius Xavier, State president of the Kerala Students’ Union, is the third accused. A student of the college and a chief reporter of a television news channel have been named the fourth and fifth accused.
While the Exam Controller had not been arraigned as an accused, he had submitted a report to the Principal attributing the erroneous mark list to a technical glitch on the NIC software used to prepare it. Hence, the decision to record the statements of both the Exam Controller and the NIC technical officer.
The CB had already recorded the statements of the first and the second accused and those of the remaining accused would be done in the coming days, sources said.
Conspiracy
The mark list of the third-semester postgraduate programme in Archaeology and Material Cultural Studies had mentioned that the SFI leader had passed the exam, though he did not appear for it. The FIR alleged that the first and the second accused conspired together to prepare a wrong mark list.
The Principal had allegedly informed the media that Mr. Arsho had registered for the exam. The other accused allegedly published the details on various platforms, it said.
The FIR has been registered under sections 120-B, 465, 469, and 500 of the Indian Penal Code and 120 (o) of the Kerala Police Act.
