IIT Roorkee in dock for inertia: Mass Copying in JEE 2011

Counted as the centers of excellence, IIT Roorkee is one of the most eminent institutes in the country for engineering and related education. IIT Roorkee has been considered as a vault of high standards but it does not consider copying as a crime. The Joint Admission Board (JAB) has aimed at IIT Roorkee to lodge an FIR on mass copying in the Bhatinda centre during this year's entrance test that was held more than four months ago. The Joint Admission Board (JAB) conducts Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) for admission to IITs.

In a reply to RTI, IIT Roorkee has said that the FIR has not been lodged. IIT Roorkee was asked to file an FIR against two of its faculty members who were sent to Bhatinda center as invigilators for conducting the JEE. A fact finding committee which has been set up by JAB, has expelled two of its faculty members- Prakash Biswas and C S P Ojha, along with Sushil Kumar, another IIT-Roorkee staff, from any JEE related activities for next five years.

As per the report, some unethical things took place amongst the college authorities, certain invigilators and an employee of Giani Zail Singh College (centre for JEE). A candidate at Giani Zail Singh College of Engineering and Technology in Bhatinda, during the IIT-JEE 2011, has lodged a written complaint that some of the students in the examination hall were helped by the invigilators and college staff.

It's not the first time that a case of mass-copying in JEE has been reported.

In 2008, mass copying was reported from the Kota centre. Later, JAB has expelled Kota as an IIT-JEE centre, and no FIR was lodged and no inquiry committees' findings were made publicly available.

Source: Richha Bhatnagar (Shiksha Team)