Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
Last month, as youth in New Delhi campaigned for their right to a fair examination system, undergraduate students of Jamnagar’s Gujarat Ayurved University were shocked to learn that their third-year BAMS (Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery) paper had allegedly leaked.
A day before students across Gujarat wrote their surgery paper, a message titled ‘Important Topics’ did the rounds among many of them, followed by a listed set of subjects and a line asking recipients to keep things to themselves. This was on WhatsApp.
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When the Shalya Tantra-I paper of the third-year BAMS examination was distributed in examination halls on the morning of July 20, students found that 11 of the 12 questions matched what had been circulating on WhatsApp.
The matter surfaced officially after a professor at the Government Ayurved College in Junagadh was alerted to the viral message on the afternoon of exam day. The same paper had been used in 20-25 colleges affiliated to the Gujarat Ayurved University. The university has not disclosed how many candidates sat for the paper.
Gujarat Ayurved University was created by an Act of the Gujarat legislature in 1965 and came into being in 1967. It is described as the first statutory university anywhere devoted exclusively to ayurvedic studies and research. It is administratively linked to the health and family welfare ministries of both the state and central governments. The legislation followed the setting up of central ayurveda research and postgraduate training institutions in Jamnagar in 1954 and 1956.
Every ayurvedic college in Gujarat is affiliated to the Gujarat Ayurved University, including government colleges in Ahmedabad, Bhavnagar and Surat and self-financed institutions in Lodra, Nadiad, Vallabh Vidyanagar and Limda. The university is NAAC-accredited with A++ grade and admits BAMS students through the national medical entrance NEET-UG, followed by state counselling.
At a media conference in Jamnagar on July 27, Gujarat Ayurved University vice-chancellor in-charge Dr Naresh Jain said the suspicion arose at the Shri Bala Hanuman Ayurved College in Gandhinagar district, where the university’s flying squad conducted a routine inspection during the exam and found suspicious WhatsApp screenshots.
Jain said a three-member committee of senior officials would investigate the matter and anyone or any institution found guilty would face punishment under university regulations along with financial penalties. A police FIR would also be lodged.
However, the exam office’s version contradicts this. H.P. Zala, the examination controller in-charge, said the exam concluded at 12:30 pm and he learned only in the evening that ‘important’ questions had been distributed on mobile phones beforehand.
Gujarat BJP spokesperson Dr Anil Patel said the vice-chancellor in-charge had assured him of an independent investigation and strict action.
Mayur Savaliya, Junagadh district president of Congress youth wing NSUI, demanded the exam be cancelled and those responsible be held to account, failing which his organisation would protest.
Students staged a dharna on the Jamnagar campus and submitted a memorandum to the vice-chancellor and controller of examinations, warning of a statewide agitation.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said Gujarat had witnessed 34 exam paper leaks between 2014 and 2024. His list included examinations for Gujarat Public Service Commission chief officer, Talati, Teacher’s Aptitude Test, Lokrakshak Dal, head clerk, forest guard and junior clerk. Ramesh argued that fast-track courts were “a diversion” from systemic reform.
Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi said a paper leak was the theft of the dreams of thousands of young aspirants, pointing to 1,899 student suicides in Gujarat over three years—568 of them in 2024 alone. Behind every one of those numbers, he said, lies a family’s grief and a young person’s unfinished dream, and what students needed now was “not an Act, but action” against paper leaks, examination malpractice and recruitment scams.
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SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
