ComedK provisionally permits 9 students for counseling amid cheating probe

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Comed-K allows nine students to attend counseling while investigating alleged exam malpractice

BENGALURU: Comed-K has decided to provisionally permit nine students who appeared in person before them for the investigation into suspected malpractice to participate in further counseling process.This was because Comed-K felt that even though prima facie there was an organised and assisted malpractice, there was no conclusive evidence against the students.Their participation will however be subject to the outcome of further investigation.

Case history:

It may be recalled that the Consortium of Medical, Engineering, Dental Colleges of Karnataka (ComedK), which holds the ComedK UG Entrance Test (UGET), suspended 36 students from participating in the counselling process over suspicions of malpractice.The students were given time till Friday to respond to ComedK with their arguments.ComedK UGET holds key to 32,670 engineering seats in Karnataka’s private engineering colleges. It was held on May 9 at 400 centres in 280 cities.Around 1,10,774 (36,954 Karnataka and 73,820 non-Karnataka) candidates appeared for the computer-based test conducted in two sessions.

How the malpractice was rolled out and detected:

Comedk, as part of its established protocol, undertook a comprehensive academic, administrative and forensic audit immediately after the publication of final results.

During this audit, certain anomalies were detected at the Jamshedpur centres.“The exam is a three-hour paper of 180 questions. We expect students to take 45-60 seconds with each question. There are instances where we have found that the students have completed only 16 questions in the first 100 minutes, but then completed 80-90 questions in the next 30 minutes. There were instances of answering 92 questions in 40 minutes and 70 questions in 20 minutes,” said Dr S Kumar, secretary, ComedK.ComedK suspects that students received external help through invigilators. The officials suspect that there were devices plugged into the student’s computers.The questions were transferred to systems outside the centres, where others solved the problems and sent back the answers to the exam halls.The answers were shared through the rough sheets students were given to work out problems.“Usually, students have to raise hands for rough sheets. Here, invigilators were giving rough sheets towards the 100th minute without students asking.

We suspect the answers have been kept between the sheets,” he said.ComedK suspects that there were three individuals working out Physics, Chemistry and Maths problems separately outside the exam halls.The answers were sent around 100th minute, after which an activity burst happened. Many of the few questions that were initially answered were also changed by the students after the 100th minute.ComedK also tried to match their ComedK scores with class 12 marks.

“There were anomalies. One had failed in Maths, but scored above 100 rank. Another had 52 in Maths in class 12, but scored within 25 in the entrance,” Kumar added.The 36 students included four in top 10, several in top 500 and extends up to 1200.

Student’s response

ComedK individually notified each of the identified candidates and has provided them an opportunity to appear before ComedK authorities in Bengaluru on or before July 10, 2026.Nine candidates appeared physically over three days. Most of the students gave similar statements that they were unaware of any device plugged into their system.What invigilators have done to their system is without their knowledge, they said.

Comed-K’s decision

Comedk, meanwhile, constituted a high power committee to look into the issue, consisting of principals from top engineering colleges.The principals met on Saturday morning to discuss the students’ responses.The committee said that though prima facie there appears to be an organized and assisted malpractice in all three centres, there is no conclusive evidence to prove and directly implicate the candidate’s involvement in securing high ranks.So these nine students may be permitted provisionally to participate in the counseling subject to the outcome of further investigation. All the nine students are below rank 100 and two in top 10.The remaining students who did not appear before the authorities, ComedK shall take appropriate decision as per their policy.The committee has also suggested that greater importance has to be given in selection of centres and personnel in future.It was also recommended to deploy proctor based CBT in the future to have conclusive evidence in case of any attempted malpractice.