8 clerical staff members suspended in exam scam at varsity

Eight clerical employees of the examination department of Annamalai University have been suspended from service in connection with the theft of answer sheets at the varsity, a top official today said.
S Raghupathy, Controller of Examination, told reporters that 25 clerical staff members of the examination department have been transferred to Salem, Nagercoil, Kochi, Bengaluru, Tirunelveli and Osur study centres.
On Thursday last, C Bhaskaran, an Assistant Professor of History at the Annamalai University in Chidambaram here and five others, all office attendants, were arrested on a complaint from the university after it was noticed in February that answer papers were missing from the varsity's strong room.

The gang allegedly retrieved the papers from the strong room using duplicate keys and handed them over to students to rewrite correct answers in return for money.
An inquiry has revealed that a group of University employees were involved in the scam and allegedly collected Rs 10,000 per paper from students. It is suspected that Rs one crore was collected by the group.
Police inspector V Ramamurthy said four assistant professors allegedly involved in the exam scam were absconding.