2006 admission test
Pioneer :: 08 July 2010
IIT prof, son cook the books, get away with paltry penalty
Moushumi Basu | New Delhi
Is the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) losing its sheen? Startling revelations on impersonation by an IITian and son of the institute’s top brass in the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE)’s screening test have come to light through RTI applications recently. What more the incident of impersonation, though a criminal offence, was not reported to police either!
Glaring irregularities committed in the JEE-2006 too have been disclosed through the RTI applications filed by Rajeev Kumar, professor in computer science at IIT Kharagpur. In some of these applications, the Central Information Commission had to issue repeated directives/orders for supplying the correct and complete information.
According to a copy of the information furnished by the IIT’s RTI cell, Sitesh Dube, son of professor Sishir Kumar Dube, was caught impersonating Sandip Kumar (Regn No 2333073) in 2000 at one of the JEE centres in New Delhi.
The reply further states that Sitesh was then a student of biochemical engineering in IIT Delhi. His father, who is currently a professor in the same institute, had earlier served top posts of director, IIT Kharagpur and chairman, Joint Admission Board (JAB), the highest body for JEE.
What further becomes an issue of concern is that though the case of impersonation is criminal in nature, there was no police proceeding against Sitesh. As a punishment, his study was simply deferred by a period of three years or six semesters.
In sharp contrast, when similar incidents of impersonation by the techies were unearthed in various engineering entrance examinations in Bihar, Odisha, Jharkhand, UP and Delhi, the culprits were immediately booked by the police.
The disciplinary committee that decided the case of impersonation by the ward of the high-profile professor included the then IIT Delhi director professor VS Raju and other deans/faculty of the institute. Among them, professor Surendra Prasad, Ashok Mishra and Prem Vrat have been elevated as the directors of IIT at Delhi, Bombay and Roorkee respectively.
Meanwhile, the RTI application further disclosed that IIT Delhi was the organising institute of JEE in 2000. Sources pointed out that it was thus very likely that some of the question papers of the examination were set there. Interestingly, Sitesh’s father is also a professor in Centre of Atmospheric Science (CAS) in IIT Delhi, which is closely related to the departments of maths and physics.
Further, while Sitesh was undergoing “penalty”, his father professor Sishir Kumar Dube was even made director, IIT Kharagpur in 2002. This also made him the member of JAB, an ex-officio position by virtue of being an IIT director.
More skeletons tumbled out of the cupboard through the RTI applications. It was found that in his above capacity, throwing all regulations to the wind, professor Dube got admitted the son of another IIT professor VK Tewari, without even his having to qualify in the JEE.
All this, despite that such discretionary quota was withdrawn after it was found illegal. What is further noteworthy in this case is that professor Tewari was the only faculty in 2002 who got such a favour from professor Dube.
Subsequently, professor Dube became the chairman of JAB in August 2005 and IIT Kharagpur was made to organise the JEE 2006. He appointed professor Tewari as the organising chairman, JEE 2006. This had been the most controversial of the entrance tests where admission bunglings have been already established.
The subject cutoffs could not be explained yet despite the fact that the IITs have already submitted four procedures in this connection. Candidates having as high as 279 marks were excluded while candidates as low as 154 were selected in general category. It was established that 994 high-scoring candidates were excluded while equal number of low-scoring candidates were selected.
It was further found that selected faculty wards from IIT Kharagpur and IIT Kanpur scored amazingly high marks. It was also revealed that the scripts of the Optical Reading Sheets were destroyed in unusual haste during pendency of the matter in violation of their own norms and regulations. Further, during admission counselling, most of the seats that are high in demand were shown artificially filled.
Yet, no explanation has been given by any of the IIT JEE top brass pertaining to the case that has been lingering for the past four years.