The R. Rajendrababu Admission Supervisory Committee (ASC) for professional colleges will meet on January 24 to take a call on the admission irregularities it has detected in dozens on private self-financing colleges for the current academic year.
While initial reports suggested that such irregularities — mismatches between the list of admitted students submitted by colleges to the ASC and to the Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam Technological University (KTU) — were detected in at least 30 colleges, the committee later found that such irregularities extended to close to 90 colleges across the State.
The committee for professional colleges has detected what it believes to be admission irregularities in at least 30 private self-financing engineering colleges in the State.
ASC Chairman R. Rajendrababu told The Hindu on Tuesday that the scrutiny of the admission lists has revealed that while in some colleges the mismatch totals to just one or two students, in other colleges the number of mismatches was much higher. “Given the number of cases that have come up, I felt it was not appropriate for the committee chairman alone to take a call on this matter. That is why the whole committee would meet on January 24,” he explained.
It was in December 2016, shortly after the then ASC chairman J. M. James declared invalid the admissions of 277 students to 12 engineering colleges, that the committee first received information that many colleges may have fudged the admission lists submitted to the committee and to the KTU. Mr. James had told The Hindu that he had received a number of phone calls from persons who claimed that many colleges had surreptitiously admitted unqualified students to B.Tech. courses. He immediately asked the KTU to provide a copy of the admission lists it had in its possession. By the end of December 2016 itself the ASC realised that such mismatches existed in the case of at least 30 colleges.
According to Mr. James the appropriate course of action for the committee now would be to hold individual hearings of the colleges concerned so that they could give their version of how the mismatches happened. The ASC can also then hold hearings for the students concerned. A final decision, including the possible removal of the said students from the KTU register, can be taken after that, he pointed out.
In December 2016 the ASC had also cancelled the admission of 83 students admitted to three self-financing engineering colleges because they did not have the minimum marks needed to qualify in the engineering entrance examinations conducted by the Commissioner for Entrance Examinations.
This action of the ASC has been challenged in the High Court and a verdict is pending. Even though the KTU had asked colleges not to allow these 360 students to write the semester examinations, it is understood that many colleges have not followed the varsity directive.
