Kolkata: Jadavpur University’s officiating vice-chancellor (V-C), Bhaskar Gupta, and Pro V-C, Amitava Dutta, were freed with the help of teachers and staff on Tuesday afternoon after being held under gherao by a group of engineering students for nearly 24 hours.
The V-C remained firm against the students’ demand. They wanted to be declared successful in a failed mathematics paper in order to qualify for government scholarships. Gupta categorically rejected the demands, describing them as unjustifiable and unethical.
On Monday, around 30-40 second-year students, who had failed a mathematics paper, began protesting. The protests followed the discovery, during a government scholarship verification, that some students had manipulated their mark sheets. They did this to show they had passed the failed paper. This prompted officials at Bikash Bhavan to inform the university and request action. The students then gheraoed the V-C and other
officials starting around 2 pm on Monday. They demanded that their failed paper be marked as passed.
Gupta clarified that the students had previously applied for scholarships by tampering with their mark sheets. However, with the introduction of a verification system, the malpractice was exposed.
He added: “Now they are demanding that the verification system be closed.”
On Tuesday, a meeting of the Examination Board was convened, and the students were asked to submit their demands in writing, but their written request did not match their verbal demands. Instead of asking for their paper to be marked as passed, they requested that the university assure them of their scholarships.
However, students who fail a paper on their first attempt are ineligible for state government scholarships.
University sources indicated that the Executive Council would decide on the cases of the students found to have tampered with their mark sheets. Internal checks suggest that around 40-42 students may be involved.