AKTU to lodge FIR against Ojha, sets up internal probe panel

LUCKNOW: Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Technical University (AKTU) will lodge an FIR against PhD candidate, Devesh Ojha, who not only taught himself but also assigned himself a paper, examined his performance and even evaluated his answer books.

Ojha was pursuing PhD in the civil engineering department of Lucknow’s Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET), a constituent college of AKTU. He was also working as a teaching assistant there.

The college and the varsity authorities were left red-faced after he made a mockery of the examination process and managed to evaluate his own work.

Reacting to this major lapse, IET director AS Vidyarthi’s slapped a show cause notice on all the teachers of the civil engineering department.

However, AKTU vice chancellor, Vinay Pathak, questioned Vidyarthi’s decision.

“The IET director went out of his way to take action against teachers.”

Pathak asked the director to explain why he failed to inform him about the incident, which was a serious academic lapse. He also questioned how the director instituted an inquiry without seeking his consent.

“W have now formed a threemember panel, headed by former HBTI director RP Singh, to look into the matter,” said the V-C.

To recall, director IET had also constituted a three-member committee under Prof Bharti Dwivedi to investigate the incident.

The committee’s report stated that Ojha’s case was a matter of ‘serious concern’ that highlighted ‘lack of guidelines, lack of communication, and procedural lapses at different levels, including, ignorance at the departmental level’. It suggested strong disciplinary action against Ojha.

Earlier, Vidyarthi had said that it was the responsibility of students to request an examiner from AKTU to oversee and evaluate their work.

In Ojha’s case, the university had failed to check the documents that the examiner is meant to submit. Due to this oversight, Ojha managed to evaluate himself.