Son of former university functionary convicted in marks scam

Nagpur, June 19 (UNI) A special court here has sentenced the son of a former functionary of Nagpur University to nine-and-a-half years of rigorous imprisonment and a former employee of the institution to twelve-and-a-half years RI in the 1995 revaluation scandal case.

The sentences were handed down by Special Judge A S Gattani yesterday, who was hearing a bunch of cases pertaining to the revaluation scam and fake mark lists and degrees scandal that rocked the Nagpur University several years ago.

Besides a fine of Rs 32,000 was slapped on Shailesh Tupkari, son of Mr Rambhau Tupkari, a former dean of the university's faculty of engineering and a former chairman of the city-based Visveswarayya National Institute of Technology (VNIT), while Madhukar Smarth, a former scrutiniser of the university, has to pay Rs 52,000.

Incidentally, Rambhau Tupkari is also a senior activist of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

However, the court acquitted former registrar of the university Prakash Mistry for lack of evidence. Another former scrutiniser, Suresh Manmode, who died during trial, was discharged.

According to the prosecution, Shailesh appeared for the Bachelor of Engineering (BE) Part II examination in winter 1995, but failed in two subjects -- Electronic Designing and Circuit (EDC), having scored 28 out of 80 marks in theory and 9 out of 20 in practical, and Network Theory (NT), having scored 17 out of 80 in theory and 17 out of 20 in practical.

During revaluation of the theory answersheets, the records were tampered with to increase his marks in the EDC from 28 to 32 and in the NT from 17 to 24, thus giving Shailesh an aggregate score of 41 out of 100 in both the subjects, sufficient to pass, the prosecution said.

The records were tampered with by Smarth, it added.

This is the seventh case related to the revaluation scam and fake mark lists and degrees scandal to be decided by the special court. Smarth has been convicted in two similar cases earlier.

UNI