The worrying revelation, that students who were identified to have cleared the university examinations in a fraudulent manner, and were thereby not in possession of a valid law degree, are presently serving as judges, has not merited any serious attention whatsoever.
FIVE YEARS AFTER Abhay Kumar Gohil, a former judge at the Madhya Pradesh High Court, recommended action in a case of serious examination fraud at the National Law Institute University of Bhopal, at least five former students identified in his inquiry report continue to serve as judges in the state’s trial courts. In 2018, Gohil conducted a lengthy inquiry into examination malpractice at NLIU Bhopal—one of India’s top public law colleges. He uncovered a racket involving the university staff, who were alleged to have manipulated exam results in exchange for money. Gohil found 176 cases of students who had been passed or had been awarded five-year bachelor’s degrees in a fraudulent manner, between 1998 and 2011.
Among these cases were Shivraj Singh Gawali, Vidhan Maheshwari, Pooja Singh Mourya, Purnima Saiyam and Tathagat Yagnik—all of whom now serve as judges in Madhya Pradesh. Maheshwari was appointed a junior judge in 2011 and is currently serving as a district and sessions judge in Shivpuri district. The other four are serving as senior-division civil judges in various districts of Madhya Pradesh. Gawali was appointed in 2012, while Mourya, Saiyam and Yagnik were appointed in 2017.
The examination fraud uncovered by Gohil made national headlines, but little or no action appears to have been taken on the report’s findings. In October 2021, Devendra Mishra, a lawyer and activist, filed a complaint before Ravi Vijaykumar Malimath, the chief justice of the Madhya Pradesh High Court at the time, as well as Giribala Singh, the principal district and sessions judge of Bhopal, who had served as the NLIU registrar until 2020. Mishra noted that Maheshwari and Gawali’s names appeared in Gohil’s report among the list of students who had failed in certain papers but were shown to have passed. Thus, these judges could not have had the required qualifications to join the judicial service, he wrote. Mishra requested the high court to examine whether these judges had produced original marksheets and degree certificates at the time of joining the judicial service.
In April 2022, the high court’s principal registrar responded to Mishra’s complaint, stating that it was under consideration. Nearly two years later, in February 2024, the registrar informed Mishra that his complaint had been closed following an inquiry into the matter by the chief justice, but did not share anything further on the findings or action taken. In the months since then, through right-to-information applications, Mishra obtained records confirming that other serving judges were also named in Gohil’s report. He acquired a copy of the service records for Maheshwari, Mourya, Saiyam and Yagnik. The Caravan has a copy of Gohil’s report, Mishra’s letters seeking action and the service records.
The university, too, has taken few serious measures. Although Gohil recommended legal and administrative action against the staffers involved in the scam, NLIU only took disciplinary action against one employee. It also pardoned the cases of most of the students whose marks were found to have been manipulated. According to an Indian Express report, it conducted one examination for some of the students whose names had appeared in the report, but the details of this examination and its results have not been made public. Regardless, the examination could not have been conducted before 2019, several years after the judges’ appointments.
These facts become even more concerning when one considers the university’s close connections with the state’s courts, administration and government. NLIU Bhopal is a public university, and the chief justice of the high court is the ex officio chancellor and the head of its general council. The council includes ministers from the state government, senior lawyers, judicial officers, the heads of the National Judicial Academy and the University Grants Commission, and senior bureaucrats.
When Gohil tabled the report, the Congress was in power in the state. Jitendra Patwari and PC Sharma, the ministers of higher education and law, respectively, were part of the general council. KK Venugopal, the former attorney general of India, was also a member. The Bharatiya Janata Party has been in power in the state since 2020, and its higher-education and law ministers—Inder Singh Parmar and the chief minister Mohan Yadav, respectively—are presently on the council. Since the report was tabled, the high court has had four chief justices and two acting chief justices. Gohil’s report has certainly crossed the desks of many of these senior judges, ministers and officials, but no serious action appears to have been taken.
The worrying revelation that Mishra noted in his complaint—that students who were identified to have cleared the university examinations in a fraudulent manner, and were thereby not in possession of a valid law degree, are presently serving as judges—has not merited any serious attention whatsoever. Gohil’s inquiry did not cover the subsequent careers of the students who allegedly benefited from the scam, and the legality of their appointment to the judicial service remains unacknowledged and unaddressed.
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In his complaint, Mishra indicated that there were more such cases. “Have there been any appointments from among those students from the NLIU of batches 2005 to 2009 [who] have not completed their law degrees till date due to technical reasons?” he asked. If these students had technically not completed their law degrees at that time, he noted, it should be investigated how their appointments were done and who gave directions for these. “There are around twenty names of judges currently serving at district courts in Madhya Pradesh that matches with the list of students named in Justice Gohil’s report. All these cases should be examined thoroughly,” Mishra told me. “Justice Gohil’s report point to a Vyapam-like scam and the courts need to take action to protect the sanctity of the judiciary.”
The Vyapam scam refers to the alleged rigging of examinations held by Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board for admission to government educational institutes and recruitment to government jobs. The admissions at NLIU had also come under the scanner, and alleged to be a part of the scam. In 2023, Maheshwari’s court was hearing a defamation case filed by BJP’s state president, VD Sharma, against the Congress leader Digvijaya Singh, who had accused the former of being involved in the Vyapam scam.
The NLIU general council is currently headed by the acting chief justice of the high court, Sanjeev Sachdeva. It also includes the vice chancellor, S Surya Prakash, and the state’s advocate general, Prashant Singh. Other members include M Jagadesh Kumar, the chairperson of the University Grants Commission, and Aniruddha Bose, the head of the National Judicial Academy in Bhopal, apart from senior bureaucrats and senior advocates.
I sent detailed queries to the university, requesting details on the examination that reportedly took place and inquiring whether the council was aware that former students named in the report were serving judicial officers. I also sent queries to various persons who were serving on the council when Gohil’s report was tabled, and those presently serving on the council, inquiring about why Gohil’s recommendations were not followed. I only received a response from a handful of former members, who admitted that they were either not aware of the report or the action taken. The university did not respond to my queries regarding the examination or the basis for the council’s pardon. Rohit Kumar Sharma, the deputy registrar and the officer on special duty to the vice chancellor, wrote that he had been directed to tell me the following:
1. The General Council has directed to conduct a reexamination of those who failed and the university conducted the examination accordingly. 2. The matter regarding the Faculty and Administrative staff, was seized by the General Council and the direction is awaited.
I also sent detailed queries to the chief justices between 2019, when Gohil tabled his report, and the present day, as well as to other relevant judicial officers and court officials, asking about the action taken on the report as well as Mishra’s letters. At the time of publishing, I had not received a response.
My detailed queries to the serving judges about their specific cases did not receive any responses.
GOHIL’S INVESTIGATION was extensive. He interviewed 66 witnesses, including students, professors, and the administrative staff involved in conducting and publishing examination results. He examined records including attendance lists, award lists, tabulation charts, declared results and marksheets, as well as provisional and degree certificates. Witnesses detailed astonishingly clear instances of examination forgery and fraud, including the manipulation of examination records and the fabrication of documents by university staff in exchange for money. Marksheets were clearly manipulated and “several failed students have been converted into pass and undue favours have been extended to them,” the report said. Gohil recommended criminal action against nine staff members including faculty and administrative employees, and disciplinary action against six others.
Gohil found that several students had failed when faculty members evaluated their answer sheets, but the tabulation charts prepared by the university’s examination division revealed that these marks had been written over or erased. In the case of several students, the marks were changed by erasing or overwriting, or by deliberately miscalculating to arrive at a total of fifty percent, which was the minimum passing mark. Many of these students had failed in repeat or re-repeat examinations of these subjects, according to the inquiry report.
Several failed students have been passed by manipulating the record of the Examination Section mostly the Tabulation Charts which are in very bad shape and their sanctity has been destroyed by overwriting, cutting, rubbing, omitting previous words and after applying fluid and whitener, results of the several students have been changed from fail to pass and have issued forged and fake Marksheets, Provisional Certificates and Degrees to the several failed students, for this purpose all concerned has committed serious kind of scam as well as crime.
The report cited several shocking cases, including one student whose marksheet was manipulated to obscure the fact that he had failed in 47 subjects. The student later admitted to Gohil that Ranjit Singh, the assistant registrar and one of the prime accused, had demanded Rs 15,000 per subject. The student eventually bargained him down to Rs 15,000 a trimester—over two lakh rupees in total. The student also told Gohil that Singh and his brother, who was also a staff member, regularly contacted failed students to offer such agreements. “It is clear that a racket was working in the university and they were involved in passing the failed students after taking money,” Gohil wrote.
He also noted that certain records such as “Tabulation Charts, Award Lists, Result Sheets and Attendance Sheets, Register for issuing Provisional Certificates, Degrees, etc., were mismanaged purposely, deliberately and intentionally under a conspiracy” to destroy evidence of manipulation and to shield those involved. In some instances, forged marksheets were issued to students after a gap of two or three years in a deliberate attempt to evade attention. “This work was done by a person of criminal mind to make changes in the record after a gap of time so that they may do it successfully and safely,” the report said. It also identified some students whose marks were found to have been increased in the tabulation charts, but whether they had actually passed or failed in the examination could not be ascertained as the relevant documents were missing. Around thirty students told Gohil, the report said, that they did not know that their marks had been increased and were not aware of the manipulation.
Gohil listed the cases of 176 students whose marksheets or results reflected manipulations. Maheshwari, from the 2004 batch, was named in a list of 40 students who had failed by more than ten marks in one subject—he was found to have failed English by 15 marks—but were given extra marks by manipulating the records. Maheshwari was appointed a civil judge in 2011. His court deals with cases against state and union legislators.
Mourya and Gawali’s names appeared in the list of 86 students who had failed in several subjects in multiple trimesters. These 86 students, Gohil found, were provided “fake and forged marksheets including provisional certificates and in some cases degrees also in the convocation.”
According to the report, Gawali failed in multiple repeat examinations in seven subjects, including property law, civil procedure code and criminal procedure code, and fraudulently received almost forty marks in the latter. He is currently serving in the Panna district court.
Mourya failed in two subjects but was marked as passed in her tabulation chart. According to the report, she fraudulently received an extra 55 marks in a repeat examination for English, in the first trimester, and an extra 13.5 marks in criminal law, in the sixth trimester. I reviewed a copy of her service records, which confirmed that she had to repeat the English examination. English is not a core subject—students need to clear it in order to receive their degrees, but it is only graded and not scored. Her final score for English was not listed, but her grade was listed as “C+,” indicating a score between 55 and 59 percent. Her score for criminal law was recorded as 57. Mourya went on to enrol in the master’s programme at NLIU. She joined as a civil judge in 2017, and is currently serving in the Betul district court.
Saiyam, from the 2007 batch, was named in a list of 35 students who had failed by more than ten marks in one subject. The report stated that she had failed in legal writing in the ninth trimester, but her score was increased by 30 marks in the transfer certificate. The report further noted that her score in English, too, was doubtful, as the evaluation marks were not available. Like English, legal writing is not a core subject, so Saiyam’s final score on the subject was not listed in the marksheet attached to her service records. Curiously, the sheet recorded the grade “O,” or outstanding, for the subject, which is given for a score of eighty percent and over. She joined the service in 2017 and is currently serving in Seoni district.
Her batchmate, Yagnik, was listed among the students who had passed, but who had still received increased marks in the tabulation chart. Gohil noted that the reason for increasing his marks were “not known” but speculated that it might have been done to improve his grade. According to the report, Yagnik’s score in administrative law in the ninth trimester was increased by three marks to show a score of 30 in the transfer certificate. His service records have only a provisional degree certificate attached. The marksheets and final degree are missing. In its reply to an RTI request filed by Mishra, the Bhopal district and sessions court informed him that these documents were not part of Yagnik’s service records—a violation of the rules for government employees. Yagnik joined the judiciary in 2013 and is currently serving in Bhopal district.
In cases of students who had failed one subject by fewer than ten marks, such as Maheshwari, Gohil recommended that the general council consider the cases of these students as “extra ordinary circumstances” by a special resolution and treat them as having passed. The report also said that the council may take appropriate decisions in the case of these students. For students who had failed in a single subject by more than 10 or fewer than 52 marks, such as Saiyam, Gohil suggested either treating them as passed or giving them a chance to clear the papers, until which time their degrees were to be kept in abeyance. Gohil had recommended that the general council take an appropriate decision in the case of the students such as Gawali and Mourya, who had failed in several subjects in multiple trimesters, but whose marksheets were found to be forged, based upon which they had been provided provisional or final degree certificates. Disregarding these suggestions, and without addressing the severity of the scam, the university decided to issue a pardon in a majority of the cases.
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GOHIL’S REPORT had confirmed a longstanding issue of corruption and fraud at the university. Allegations of malpractice at NLIU had first arisen in 2016, when students publicly alleged that fraudulent degrees were being awarded at the university. In 2017, the future chief justice of India, SA Bobde, then a Supreme Court judge and a visitor at NLIU, wrote to the university’s director, SS Singh, about these allegations and sought his comments. Hemant Gupta, the chief justice of the high court at the time, had also written to Singh, asking for an inquiry. Singh initiated an internal inquiry, which found grievous discrepancies in the examination process, such as manipulation of marks, missing documents and official documents maintained without the mandatory signature of the staff in charge. Gohil later noted in his report that he was surprised that, despite the large-scale discrepancies and serious lapses, the internal committee, comprising two faculty members and a deputy librarian, did not recommend a detailed inquiry into the matter.
Later that year, NLIU witnessed protests by students against administrative lapses at the university, including a case in which a professor had fraudulently passed a student by awarding grace marks. The protesters met Gupta as well. Students also wrote to the UGC, regarding a case where a student who had failed by over ten marks was passed by extending undue favour. “The preferential treatment that has been given to some of the students is not only arbitrary and fraudulent but is also unfair to other students,” the letter stated, adding that, despite numerous such cases being brought to Singh’s attention, no action was taken. His ten-year tenure as director coincided with the occurrence of malpractices Gohil later discovered. Singh was eventually removed from his position, and, in May 2018, the general council asked Gohil to carry out an inquiry into the allegations of examination fraud.The general council met in January 2019 to discuss Gohil’s report as well as the previous internal inquiry. The Caravan accessed the minutes of the meeting. The 20-member council was headed by the late SK Seth, the chief justice of the high court at the time, and its members included Jitendra Patwari and PC Sharma, the higher-education and law ministers, respectively, in the Congress government ruling the state. On the council were also KK Venugopal, then the attorney general of India, the Rajya Sabha member and Supreme Court advocate Vivek Tankha, and Shivendra Upadhyay, the chairman of the State Bar Council of Madhya Pradesh, among other eminent lawyers and heads of legal bodies. Eight members, including Venugopal, did not attend the meeting. Ignoring Gohil’s recommendation to take criminal action against the accused, the council decided to issue a one-time pardon in most cases and agreed to conduct a special examination for the remaining students.
The council admitted that examination patterns at NLIU had become irregular, with students often having to appear for first-, second-, third- and fourth-year examinations in the final year. “As a result, regular examination, repeat and re-repeat, and Special examinations became the order of the day,” the minutes note. “During the past couple of years, even the continuous assessment scheme, the hallmark of semester or trimester pattern, have been given a go by.” But the council did not appear to have discussed serious allegations of forgery and fabrication of documents pointed out in Gohil’s inquiry report. It did not reckon with Gohil’s findings that a scam had intentionally been carried out at the university for over a decade.
Deviating from Gohil’s recommendations, the council decided to forgive students who had failed in non-credit courses that were not included in the list prescribed by the Bar Council of India—the statutory oversight body prescribes 44 subjects for bachelor’s courses in law and 52 courses for the bachelor’s honours programme, but the NLIU degree programme offers more subjects, such as computers and English. The university also offers non-credit courses such as competition law, comparative jurisprudence, global terrorism and cyber law for its honours and master’s students, according to its website.
The council decided to pardon a large number of the remaining students as well, against Gohil’s clear recommendations. “It was resolved to condone the difference of marks for passing the courses upto 20 marks in one or more subjects,” the minutes said. The council cited missing records as its reasoning, stating that answer books up to 2001 had been disposed of, that certain examination records were not available and that “more than 15 years have passed by from the first batch of students.” It further said, “However, this should be treated as one time measure and not to be resorted to at all in the future.”
The council resolved to issue show-cause notices to students who had failed by a margin of more than twenty marks in each subject. According to the minutes, it was unanimously resolved that, “after taking the explanation of such students, if such explanation is not found satisfactory as per the documents available as evidence against them, they may be afforded one last opportunity to clear the relevant subjects.” If the students cleared this examination, the council decided, their degree would be effective from the original date of the issue of the degree. If they failed to clear the examination, the matter was to be placed before the general council.
It is unclear which subjects fell under the council’s broad pardon and whether this included the university’s own non-core courses. And so, it remains unclear which judges were pardoned under this decision and which were required to retake the examination. The university’s subsequent actions remain shrouded in secrecy. For instance, no information regarding the special examination, to be held as per the decision of the general council, has been made public. My queries to the judges on whether they received notice from the university on their cases went unanswered. The university, too, did not share any further details regarding the basis for its pardon and the examination.
The general council did not appear to have discussed Gohil’s recommendation to lodge a police complaint against the prime accused. The key accused named in Gohil’s report, the assistant registrar Ranjit Kumar, was dismissed from service and “therefore no purpose would be served by the notice against him or other employees mentioned in the said inquiry who are no longer in the service of this university,” the minutes said. Besides removing them from their responsibilities in the exam section, the minutes contain no reference to other action taken against the faculty members and administrative employees that Gohil had identified in his report—two of these employees were members of the three-member internal committee that had initially probed the matter. The council resolved to report the matter of the former registrars RKS Gautam and CM Garg, who were serving judicial officers between 2003 and 2010, to the high court, as recommended by Gohil. (The court did not respond to my queries about the action taken against these officers.) The council did not even consider whether students who were found to have obtained a law degree through illegitimate means, were eligible to join the judicial service and perform the duties of a judge.
It is unclear whether any of these decisions were implemented. Referring to a constitutional provision that allows citizens to seek inquiry into the legality of a person’s claim to public office, Mishra told me, “I will take up this matter as a quo warranto petition before the high court and Supreme Court.”
https://caravanmagazine.in/law/nliu-exam-fraud-judges-bhopal-vyapam
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