JOIN US Tired of waiting, nearly 50 students, who could not appear for the exam as they did not receive their hall tickets, met the director on Wednesday.
In spite of knocking on the doors of various officials from Department of Pre-University Education including the State Education Minister Vishweshwar Hegde Kageri, their pleas to write during supplementary exam have gone unheard.
In fact, the students say that when they had taken up the matter with the director before the exam, he had assured to look into the matter post the PU exam, which further delayed after PU results. "We are going to give PU board time till May 19. If they don’t take any decision by then, we will go on hunger strike along with our parents in front of the PU board," said Sharvanan, one of the students.
Most students were working and somehow managed time to study. Meanwhile, the students are planning to meet Education minister once again on Thursday, he added.
He alleged that Manjunath, principal of MEWA College had asked the students to pay college and exam fee, which varied from Rs 8,000 to Rs 15,000, depending on the students' affordability. The principal had assured the students that their documents along with exam fee had been sent to Old Fort College, near K R Market. However, when they did not get to hear about the hall ticket even by February, the students started questioning Manjunath. "On March 17, a day before the exam were to start, Manjunath fell on our feet and said that our documents were not sent to the PU board. In fact, Ramamurthy, principal of Old Fort College, said that he had not received any documents from Manjunath," said Sharvanan.
Old Fort College Principal claimed that he had already filled up the fees and sent across a challan to the PU Board. The students managed to get the challan and were shocked to learn that the challan belonged to some other students. Three employees of PU Board, Old Fort and MEWA College principals were involved and cheated the students to the tune of around Rs 13 lakh, Sharavan claimed.
The Department director S Shankaranarayan said there was little he could do. "A proposal has been sent to the Government to allow these candidates to write for supplementary exam in June, in view of them not having written the exam in March. The decision would come within this month as the supplementary exam were on June 28. The students were also at fault for having registered in a private college instead of a government college, as the rule mentioned, he added.
However, he did admit that about the nexus between Old Fort College, which allowed students from private colleges to falsely represent them. The Old Fort College principal had been suspended and a notice would be served on MEWA college too, he added.