No action against faculty who schemed against students

Thiruvananthapuram: After a spate of knee-jerk reactions, Kerala University and the state government have gone back from the assurance that strict action would be taken against a senior examiner who had purposefully denied marks to his own students at the Government Law College.
C Raveendranath, the then higher education minister, and university authorities had promised strict action against all those schemed against their own students with an alleged motive to help students from a private law academy to win the university ranks. However, KU or the government have not only failed to act, but also let the same teacher — Suhruthu Kumar, associate professor, Government Law College — continue to perform all important functions relating to the conduct of examinations and valuation of answer papers of the college.
It was in 2016 that several students had complained of lapses in the evaluation and revaluation of the paper ‘international law’. Following this, one of the students who had been expecting a rank in the examination, approached the high court. Upon the directive of the court, the answer papers were sent to a university in Gujarat for third-round evaluation. When the result came, more than 20 students got 100% increase in their score. It was alleged that the examiner at Government Law College here had connived with the faculty in charge of revaluation and ensured that there would be no substantial change.
Following the HC decision to grant the revalued marks to all students, higher education principal secretary Usha Titus had directed the university to initiate disciplinary action against Kumar. However, the university did not take any action against Kumar, who is also the secretary of pro-CPM All Kerala Gazetted Officers’ Association.
Repeated reminders from the higher education department were also ignored by the university. “With the varsity refusing to at least keep the faculty away from examination related duty, many students fear that they would be denied justice and subjected to discrimination,” said a student in the college who preferred anonymity.