The authorities of the autonomous Maharaja’s College, Ernakulam, did not report the alleged errors in the mark list figuring P.M. Arsho, State Secretary of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI), to the National Informatics Centre (NIC), till it hit headlines on June 6.
It has emerged from the reply to a Right to Information (RTI) application filed by The Hindu that the college authorities had reported the anomaly only on June 12 by email. Mr. Arsho’s name had figured in the mark list of the third semester examination of the postgraduate programme (2021 admission) in Archaeology and Material Cultural Studies published online in March.
The controversy had erupted after activists of the Kerala Students’ Union (KSU) alleged on June 6 that the mark list had mentioned that Arsho, who did not appear for the exam, had cleared it even though the total cumulative points earned was recorded as ‘zero’. The college authorities had blamed the technical glitch in the NIC’s software for the faux pas. Five queries under the RTI Act were posed before the Kerala State Centre of the NIC, which managed the software of the institution.
Asked whether the error occurred owing to the glitch in the NIC’s software, the reply said, “There was an unforeseen scenario, which was not communicated to NIC while considering the cases of readmission. This resulted in an anomaly in the internal report generated by Maharaja’s College for verification. This anomaly was not intimated earlier to NIC by the college authorities. However, verification of all reports before publishing on their website is the sole responsibility of the college authorities.”
The college authorities had earlier said that the SFI leader was given readmission into the fourth semester after he was removed from the rolls for shortage of attendance in the third semester.
The NIC pointed out that the “data management and ownership of the college website lie with the college authorities,” when asked whether the college authorities had entered ‘passed’ against Arsho’s name. To a query seeking data on the statement made by the college authorities that such goof-ups had occurred in the case of a few other students, the NIC reply said it was providing only software support. A query on whether Arsho had remitted the fee for the third semester exam did not elicit a reply from the NIC.
