Gauhati HC orders closure of PIL against Super 30 founder

The Gauhati High Court on Thursday ordered closure of a PIL filed by four students against mathematician Anand Kumar for allegedly cheating them in the name of admission to Super 30, the education programme run by him.

The court, however, granted liberty to the four IIT Guwahati students, the petitioners, to approach a court which has jurisdiction over Patna and accordingly considered the PIL closed as withdrawn.

A division bench of Gauhati High Court comprising Chief Justice Ajay Lamba and Justice A M Bujarbaruah said this taking note of the averments made in the PIL against Kumar, affidavits filed by Anand Kumar, Bihar former Director General of Police Abhayanand and other students, who claimed that they were "cheated" by the mathematician in the name of Super 30.

Abiding by the order, Anand Kumar appeared before the Gauhati High Court and sought apology from the court for not personally appearing before the bench on Tuesday as dircted earlier.

Kumar also deposited Rs 50,000 cost as directed by the High Court to the five guardians and students from Bihar, who claimed that Kumar had "cheated" them in the name of the famed academy.

The same division bench on November 19 had directed Kumar to appear in person on November 26 observing that if he fails to do so a bailable warrant shall be issued against him.

Kumar's initiative selects 30 students each year from economically underprivileged sections and trains them for the JEE, entrance exam for admission in IIT.

Amit Goyal, counsel of the four IIT-G students said the students alleged before the court that Kumar has not disclosed the names of the 26 IIT entrance qualified students out of the 30 students from his 'Super 30' in 2018.

The petitioners had alleged that due to the wrong projection by Anand Kumar, each year a number of students from different parts of the country go to him with full faith and hope that he will help them in qualifying for IIT.

The aspirants on reaching Patna were, however, made to take admission in his coaching institute - Ramanujam School of Mathematics and each of them were charged Rs 33,000, the PIL said.

Another respondent in the PIL, Super 30 co-founder and Bihar former Director General of Police Abhayanand in his affidavit filed before the High Court had stated he had "conceptualized the noble programme of Super 30 with the idea of solving societys problems. Anand Kumar had deficiencies in his mathematical thought process."