Student held for impersonation - Examinee falls ill, tells junior to write paper at Siliguri College

Siliguri, April 27: A second-year Nepali (honours) student of Siliguri College was caught writing a university examination for his senior today.

While Jeet Kumar Rai was arrested for cheating and impersonation, police are looking for Indra Kami, a third-year student of the same subject in the college for whom he was writing the exam.

Kami’s family members said he couldn’t appear for the environmental science paper of North Bengal University today as he had fallen ill, but they didn’t know that he would ask another student to write the exam for him.

“The exam started at 9am and around 50 third-year BA students were writing the ENVS paper in room number 19 of the college. At 10am, the invigilator, Amitava Kanjilal, went around the room asking the candidates to sign on the attendance sheet. But a particular student gave his signature after much hesitation and the invigilator became suspicious. He immediately checked the student’s signatures for the previous exams and found that they did not match with today’s signature,” said college principal Malay Karanjai.

Since the admit card provided by the varsity did not have a photograph, the examinee was asked to produce his college identity card. But the student said he had forgotten to bring the ID card today.

Kanjilal informed the principal about the matter and the latter went to the exam hall along with a teacher of the Nepali department. “The Nepali teacher identified the particular student as Jeet Kumar Rai, a second-year student of his department, and not Indra Kami, who was supposed to write the exam. Jeet was carrying Indra’s admit card,” said Karanjai.

The undergraduate examinations of the NBU began on April 13. The ENVS paper is compulsory for BA, BSc and BCom students.

The college authorities procured a confession letter from Jeet and filed an FIR with Siliguri police station, complaining about cheating and impersonation by him and Indra.

“The police took Jeet into custody. We have also submitted a written complaint to the university’s controller of examination with a copy of the confession letter and the answer sheet seized from Jeet,” said the principal.

Jeet is from Kalimpong and lives in a rented accommodation at Jyotinagar on the outskirts of Siliguri. The police will produce him in the additional chief judicial magistrate’s court here tomorrow.

Relatives of Indra — a resident of Siliguri Junction — said he had taken ill last night. “Indra had appeared for all his papers since the exams began on April 13. He was suffering from diarrhoea and we admitted him to Matigara block health centre yesterday evening. We dissuaded Indra from appearing for today’s exam as his condition was bad. We had no knowledge that he had told another student to write the exam on his behalf. When we asked Indra about it, he said he feared losing a year if he did not appear for the exam and told Jeet to write the paper,” said a family source.

Indra was discharged from the hospital today and the police are looking for him.

Police sources said both the students had been booked under bailable sections 417 (punishment for cheating) and 419 (punishment for cheating by personation) of the IPC.

Legal sources said a person charged under Section 417 could be punished with a jail term of maximum one year or with a fine or with both. The Section 419 entails a punishment of a jail term that might extend to three years or a fine or both.

Sushanta Das, the controller of examinations at the NBU, confirmed receiving the complaint from the college and said the matter would be referred to the board of discipline — a statutory body of the university.

“The board of discipline will verify the documents and hold hearings for both the students as well as the college authorities. If found guilty, the students can be debarred from appearing for any exam conducted by the NBU for a year or two years or even for their whole life depending on the severity of the offence,” said Das.(TT)