‘Increasing pass percentage to enhance the college’s reputation’ was the motive behind the question paper leak by staff at Swathi Institute of Technology and Sciences at Batasingaram last week, the police said disclosing investigation details on Tuesday.
Abdullapurmet police, which registered cases of cheating and malpractice against three college staff and an external observer, also arrested and remanded them to judicial custody. The police had said it was alerted by the State Board of Technical Education and Training on Thursday, two days after it first detected the malpractices.
The Board’s diploma semester regular examinations had been scheduled between February 8 and 12. However, with the leaking of question papers relating to Applied Engineering Mathematics and Electrical Circuits the dates were re-scheduled.
According to the police, it was found that G. Krishna Murthy, administrative officer, S. Venkateshwarlu, Chief Superintendent and Mathematics lecturer and K. Krishna Mohan, Civils lecturer at the institute came up with the plan.
“M. Venkat Ram Reddy, the external observer, agreed with their scheme to visit the exam centre late. And well before the exam time, they downloaded the question paper copies from the disk and circulated to its students. The same papers also got circulated to students of other colleges over WhatsApp,” the police explained.
The police is also verifying connivance of other staff in the incident.
Meanwhile, the Board has also initiated departmental action against the accused officials. Last week, the institute was served a show-cause notice and shifting the students to other colleges was being considered.
