Karnataka PU valuators doubled for early results

Bengaluru: The much delayed valuation of the II PU final examinations began across the state on Wednesday with nearly double the manpower to make up for the lost time. But the results may be out only by the second week of May, according to an officer of the pre-university education department.

As against the 10,000 lectures, who were supposed to start the valuation on April 5, over 20,000 , including lecturers from un- aided private colleges, got down to valuating  the answer scripts on Wednesday.

“As we are using  double the manpower needed, the valuation will be completed by May 2. But with the Common Entrance Test (CET) scheduled for May 4 and 5, the results will be announced only in the second week of May,” explained the officer.

The lecturers are expected to evaluate 24 answer scripts every day. “They are evaluating 12 in the morning session  and 12  in the afternoon. There is a provision to give as many as 35 answer scripts to a lecturer in a day, but we are restricting the number to 24,”  said PUE director,  Ramegowda.

The heat however appears to be taking its toll of the lecturers, who are not able to work as long as they normally would because of it. "In many district headquarters, the irregular power supply is also coming in the way," said an officer.

KCOCA invoked against PU paper leak accused

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) on Wednesday invoked the Karnataka Control of Organised Crime Act (KCOCA), 2000, on the case of the second PU Chemistry question paper leaks on March 21 and 31 this year. According to one of the provisions of this Act, the accused, including those who are yet to be arrested, cannot apply for anticipatory bails.

“The CID sleuths appraised the court on the development of the invoking of KCOCA Act on the paper leak case, while a hearing on the anticipatory bail petition of Shivakumaraiah alias Shivakumar, the prime accused, was underway on Wednesday,” said a senior CID official.

Further, the court rejected the bail appeal. The KCOCA Act has been invoked earlier by the state police on cases of organised crimes involving notorious mafia dons. This would be the first instance of CID invoking the act. Shivakumar was involved earlier in cases of question paper leaks and cases were registered against him at various police stations in Bengaluru.

“His name has been doing rounds in six chargesheets that have been already filed pertaining to cases of question paper leaks. Usually only two cases of involvement are required for invoking this Act, and this would bring stringent legal bindings over the accused, as they have been running the organised crime syndicate for a continued period of time,” said a senior CID official.

3 involved in second time leak The CID officials said that three of the accused Manjunath, Oblaraju and Rudrappa were involved in the leak. During the investigations, they found some evidence that the accused had shared the question papers for money.