The University of Kerala has revoked the suspension of a senior official who was in the dock for alleged lapses that had paved the way for the recent moderation controversy.
Vice Chancellor V.P. Mahadevan Pillai issued the order to revoke the suspension of Deputy Registrar A.R. Renuka, who had been served a suspension order a month ago after a preliminary inquiry found her to be responsible for lapses that led to the unauthorised modification of marks in the tabulation database.
A detailed inquiry that was subsequently conducted attributed the issue to technical flaws that crept into the software and errors in entering the moderation marks, which had been approved by the varsity’s Pass Board. The suspension was revoked after it was found that neither the official nor any other employee in the examination wing had purposely committed any error with malafide intention. Service organisations have also been demanding the revocation of the suspension order, citing the findings of the internal inquiry.
Revised mark lists
In a statement, the university said it had adopted steps to rope in the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) to rectify the inadequacies of the tabulation software. Besides, efforts were under way to issue revised mark lists to those students whose marks had been found to have been modified.
The university has also submitted a formal complaint to the Kerala police, seeking a comprehensive investigation into the seizure of forged mark lists from the house of Vishnu Somasundaram, a suspected gold smuggler.
Officials of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence had seized the fake documents, created to falsely imply that they had been issued by the University Institute of Technology, Kuravankonam, around ten years ago.
