Mumbai: An audio clip of a woman allegedly offering a "special" exam centre to an engineering aspirant for Rs 12 lakh has surfaced, prompting the Maharashtra CET Cell to lodge a police complaint, officials said on Tuesday.
Several students, parents and the Opposition Congress questioned the credibility of the Maharashtra Common Entrance Test (MH-CET) for engineering colleges, claiming that some candidates with modest academic records secured near-perfect percentiles.
They demanded a thorough probe, saying the future of meritorious students was at stake.
In the clip, a woman is purportedly heard offering an unidentified parent a "special" examination centre for nearly Rs 12 lakh. She claims the arrangement would help the student secure an exceptionally high percentile and gain admission to a reputed government-aided engineering college.
State CET Cell Commissioner and CEO Dilip Sardesai said they have taken cognisance of the unverified audio clip.
"The MH-CET Cell has not received any complaint in connection with the audio clip. We have taken cognisance of it and lodged complaints with the State Cyber Cell and the Azad Maidan police (in Mumbai)," Sardesai told reporters.
He, however, rejected allegations that candidates could influence the allotment of examination centres.
"A student can choose four preferred examination centres. Female candidates can opt for centres within their district. A week before the exam, students are informed only about the city/town where they will appear. The exact name and address of the centre are shared two days before the exam. No student has the final say in selecting the examination centre. It is allotted randomly through a computerised process," he said.
"We will analyse the students under suspicion. But on this information alone, we cannot conclude that those who scored very high percentiles did anything wrong," he said.
The controversy deepened after state Congress spokesperson Balaji Gade cited the case of the son and daughter of a BJP corporator from Nanded, saying they secured 56 per cent and 51 per cent marks, respectively, in the Physics-Chemistry-Mathematics group in the Class 12 exam.
They scored 51 per cent and 28 per cent in the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE), yet both secured 99 percentile in the MH-CET, he claimed in a video.
"How did they score so high? Did they get the examination paper in advance? How was it leaked?" Gade asked.
Sardesai said isolated cases should not be used to question an examination taken by lakhs of students.
He said 4.63 lakh students appeared for the MH-CET. Of them, 2.35 lakh came under the Centralised Admission Process (CAP). The remaining 2.29 lakh did not participate in CAP.
"Among the 2.29 lakh students outside CAP, around 25,000 have scored above 80 percentile. There are 4,319 students with more than 95 percentile. Questions are being raised only about students in the provisional merit list. In effect, doubts are being cast on all 4.63 lakh candidates, even though the CET Cell has data for only about half of them," he said.
"If we had the data of the remaining high-scoring candidates outside CAP, it would have helped us analyse the issue more comprehensively," Sardesai added.
He maintained that a few unusual cases should not be treated as proof of malpractice.
"If a student performs well in one exam, it is generally expected that he/she would perform well in another. In a dataset of nearly five lakh students, there could be a few hundred cases that appear unusual. Such outliers are possible in any exam," he said.
Some parents from Parbhani district alleged large-scale malpractice in the exam and demanded an independent investigation.
A parent claimed several students who scored around 50 per cent in the Class 12 board exam held in March got nearly 99 percentile in the MH-CET conducted within two months.
"There must be some racket involved," the parent claimed, adding the state government must probe it.
Students also said the alleged irregularities were hurting genuine candidates.
"The syllabus of the HSC (Class 12 board) examination and MH-CET is almost similar. Yet some students with poor marks in Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics have scored exceptionally well in MH-CET. This will affect admissions to top colleges," a student said.??
Another student said he scored 93 per cent in Class 10 and 86 per cent in Class 12. He secured 99.32 percentile in MH-CET. Yet his admission prospects had worsened because of the unusually high number of top scorers.
"Based on last year's trend, I expected around 99.4 percentile and a rank of about 2,000. Now my rank has slipped to around 3,000. It has reduced my chances of getting admission to a reputed engineering college," the student said.
Another student urged the government to order a detailed investigation and not deprive sincere and meritorious students of admission to good colleges.
Teacher Dinesh Kumar Gupta also questioned the results.
"The Class 12 board exam is comparatively easier, whereas MH-CET papers are equivalent to JEE Main. Students who could not score well in the board examination would normally find it difficult to score exceptionally high in MH-CET. Yet there are nearly 200 students who secured 38 to 40 per cent in Class 12 but almost 100 percentile in MH-CET. These cases need to be examined," he added.
This report was published from a syndicated wire feed. Apart from the headline, the EdexLive Desk has not edited the copy.
