Manipulation of marks in Goa University

The Right to information Act 2005 has provision for obtaining answerbooks of students. I made an application under RTI Act dated 21/2/2014 for certified copy of my answerbook of the subject Constitution I as I had reasons to believe that my marks were manipulated by Goa University.

The Public Information Officer Smt S.J. Chari by her reply No GU/Exam/LLB(Degree)/RTI/562 dated 18/3/2014 informed me that photocopies of answerbook shall be made available as per circular No GU/Exams/55/2011/338 dated 20/5/2011. 

She also informed that as per point No 9 of the said circular the certified copies will not be given as per RTI Act. This was inspite of the fact that the judgement of the Hon’ble Supreme Court was brought to her notice in my RTI Application itself. By refusing to abide by the directions of the Honble Supreme court Smt S. J. Chari has committed contempt of the Hon’ble Supreme Court which is a criminal offence. The Contempt of Courts Act was also brought to her notice in my RTI application itself. Inspite of this fact she did not hesitate to commit willfull disobedience of the judgement of the Hon’ble Supreme Court.

As a result of denial of the certified copies under RTI Act a First Appeal was preferred before the First Appellate authority under RTI Act Prof N S Bhat dated 25/03/2014. 

The Appeal hearing was fixed on 24/4/2014. At the time of hearing the Public Information Officer submitted her reply.

I also submitted additional arguments in support of my appeal.

The appeal was allowed. The PIO was directed to provide the certified copies as per RTI Act at the rate of Rs 2/page. The copy of order is as below.

Though the First Appellate Authority passed an order directing to provide the certified copies as per Hon’ble Supreme Court judgement. But if you read the order closely Prof N. S. Bhat has actually committed contempt of Hon’ble Supreme Court. The lines in the second last para of his order are violative of the supreme court judgement. The line are as follows “I am of the view that the fees for the photocopies as stated in the circular dated 20/05/2011 is waived off only in this case and shall not be treated as a precedent.” This line simply means that the university will not follow the supreme court order if any other student applies for certified copies under RTI Act. On one hand Prof N S Bhat passes an order directing to provide the copies as per Supreme Court judgement on the other hand he says that he will not obey the supreme court order henceforth if any application is made in the future under RTI Act.

From the above it is crystal clear that the university officials will go even to the extent of willfully disobeying the supreme court to protect their malafide and corrupt intentions and to avoid transparency in the working of Goa University. 

Further when i received the certified copies of my evaluated answerbook i found that in the covering letter it is mentioned as xerox copies. The word "xerox copies" has been mentioned in the letter so than no other student should go to Goa University to demand certified copies. They never thought that this letter will be uploaded online. I would like to state that GU has provided me with certified copies.

 But to my horror my marks have been masked and which amounts to incomplete information as per RTI ACT.

As can be seen in the above image of front page of my evaluated answerbook the marks have been masked.
This has been done to hide the manipulation of my marks done by corrupt officials of GU. The Hon'ble supreme court judgement allows masking of examiners name only . without marks the certified copies are nothing but a piece of wastepaper.