The Kerala High Court Administrative Committee will decide on a request to permit six judicial officers to depose before the Mahatma Gandhi University’s Syndicate subcommittee, which is probing the copying case involving T.J. Jose, Inspector General of Police.
The judicial officers were among the 58 candidates who wrote the LLM Constitutional Law examination at St. Paul’s College, Kalamassery, on May 4.
The Hindu has reliably learnt that the administrative committee headed by Chief Justice Ashok Bhushan and comprising Thottathil B. Radhakrishnan, K.T. Sankaran, Antony Dominic, and T. R. Ramachandran Nair is expected to give its decision within two weeks.
The Syndicate subcommittee had issued notice directly to the judicial officers asking them to depose before it on June 11. They were willing to appear before the committee, but requested the High Court authorities to provide duty leave as it was a working day.
The decision to leave the matter to the administrative committee was taken on the inference that the subcommittee was not a judicial body and one constituted by the university. The powers to spare the judicial officers to appear before such a committee lie with the High Court administrative committee.
The Syndicate subcommittee has learnt that some of the judicial officers were seated next to Mr. Jose. The committee had already collected the statements given by 13 other candidates. A few among them admitted to having witnessed an argument between Mr. Jose and the invigilator.
There were two invigilators on duty at the examination hall, where 58 candidates were seated. The invigilator, who had earlier given a statement to the university’s Deputy Registrar (filed the preliminary report) that Mr. Jose refused to hand over the materials used for cheating and hurriedly left the hall, is learnt to have repeated it before the syndicate subcommittee.
The second invigilator, who had not appeared before the varsity official, told the committee that he knew earlier that the candidate was a senior police officer. Interestingly, this official pointed out that he came to know about the incident only after watching television in the evening.
He also feigned ignorance when asked why the answer sheet of a candidate was taken to safe custody by the chief superintendent before the scheduled time.
Judicial officers were in the same exam hall as IG
Decision left to court panel
