Nagpur: Top Nagpur University (NU) officers, including former vice-chancellor SN Pathan, former pro-VC Gaurishanker Parasher, ex-registrar Subhash Belsare, ex-controller of examinations (CoE) ML Nagargoje and eight members of the Board of Examinations (BoE) allegedly colluded to accept bogus mark sheets surrendered by then law student Sunil
Mishra to prevent his conviction in the infamous Kohchade scam in 2006.
The minutes of November 13, 2006 BoE meeting, a copy of which is with TOI, lay bare the NU’s fraud in accepting the bogus marklist, which sent Mishra behind bars two months after the controversial decision.
Under wraps for over 12 years, the scandal came to fore when academician Dr Vedprakash Mishra referred to Sunil Mishra’s LLB marklist case in one of his letters to NU while surrendering his diploma in Gandhian Thoughts. The NU had refused to accept Dr Vedprakash’s diploma since it was proved to have been obtained by submitting allegedly plagiarised thesis. Denying him the “privilege” to surrender, Dr Vedprakash’s three-decade-old diploma was withdrawn by Board of Examinations and Evaluation (BoEE) in February this year.
Ironically, Dr Vedprakash too was present at the 2006 BoE meeting. Baban Taywade, Ashok Gomashe, DS Kadav, TD Patel, GD Dubey, MM Jumle and AD Deshmukh were other BoE members.
The former Board of Mass Communication chairman Mishra, along with three exam officials, was arrested by Sitabuldi police and put on trial by a special court for cheating the NU by preparing forged marklist of his LLB Part-I in 2000.
Mishra having roll number 1535 had appeared in the winter LLB Part-I exam in 1995 conducted by the NU. Though he had failed in ‘Law of Torts’ subject scoring 23 out of 100, Mishra was “cleared” after revaluation taking his marks to 67. The marks were increased in connivance with the then CoE Prakash Mistry, scrutinizer
Madhukar Smarth and tabulator Suresh Manmode, who too were tried for handing over Mishra a forged mark sheet.
The special court judge AS Gattani found Mishra guilty under sections 420, 468, 477 and 109 and convicted him for 12-and-a-half years jail on January 10, 2007. Later, the high court reduced the quantum of punishment to six months, imposed Rs40,000 cost, but maintained the conviction.
Nearly three months before the verdict, Mishra had reportedly made last ditch attempt to save himself from conviction and subsequent imprisonment by offering to surrender his LLB marklists to make them null and void.
On October 12, 2006, Mishra wrote to the vice-chancellor expressing his desire to surrender his LLB marklists. Mishra mentioned flimsy reasons such as change from annual pattern to semester pattern and “baseless allegations against him” by senate member Balraj Aher for his move. Mishra didn’t specify what these allegations were.
On October 19, 2006, then registrar Subhash Belsare moved a notesheet along with Mishra’s letter before the vice-chancellor SN Pathan, who ordered to place the matter before BoE.
On November 13, 2006, the case was put up as table item before the BoE which passed a resolution to accept Mishra’s LLB Part-I, II and III marklists. Since Mishra knew the first marklist was forged, the subsequent marklists too would have proved to be bogus and he decided to surrender them as well.
As per the minutes, the BoEE too didn’t deliberate over the reasons given by Mishra and instead portrayed him as a victim of vilification.
The minutes were signed by then pro-VC Parasher as VC Pathan had stayed away from the meeting.
Vice chancellor SP Kane didn’t answer to TOI’s calls.
Choronology of the fraud is as follow:
October 12, 2006
Sunil Mishra, then a student of LLB (3-yr course), writes to NU’s then VC SN Pathan
Requests NU to allow him surrender his marklist for LLB Part-I (1995), Part 2 (2000) and Part 3
Claims he never appeared in those exams and at the same time states he never passed them
Semester pattern and complaint lodged by senate member Balraj Aher too attributed as the reason for surrendering his marklists
October 17, 2006
Then registrar Subhash Belsare moves a notesheet asking then CoE ML Nagargoje to place the issue before Board of Examinations
Oct 19, 2006
Ex-VC Pathan directs the matter be placed before the BoE
November 13, 2006
* The case is placed before the BoEE as table item (on the spot) and not a regular agenda item
* The case is clubbed with two other cases - surrender of MA Sociology degree by one Pradeep Rathod and Mishra’s diploma in travel and tourism which both of them pursued simultaneously while being enrolled for other courses
BoE passes resolution to make Mishra’s mark sheets null and void subsequent to surrender
January 10, 2007
Mishra is convicted by special court which found him guilty under Section 420, read with 34, 109 of the IPC and 408, 471, 120B IPC
Collectively the jail term is over 12 years which is later reduced to six months and cost of Rs40,000 slapped by HC
July 3, 3008
HC reduces jail term but refuses to stay the conviction
