Madras varsity to pay for ‘cheating’ student

T S Sekaran: Express Buzz: 26 Oct 2010:

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Monday reprimanded the University of Madras for having engaged an unqualified person to re-evaluate an answer script and directed the varsity to pay to the affected student `25,000 toward the cost of the re-assessment.

The action of the University would amount to cheating the students, Justice K Suguna said while allowing a writ petition from M Sivakumar, who joined the two-year Master of Law course as a private candidate with the Madras University. As he was declared failed in the subject Comparative Labour Law (USA and UK) in the June 2009 examinations, Sivakumar applied for a re-evaluation of the paper. After failing again and his petition being dismissed in a lower court, he filed an RTI, which revealed that his answer scripts were re-evaluated by a Dr Balasankaran Nair of the Madurai Kamaraj University, who had neither studied labour law nor taught the subject at the PG level.

Allowing the present petition, the judge directed Madras University to get Sivakumar’s answer sheet re-evaluated by qualified examiners and pay him the cost.