Muzaffarpur Institute of Technology. Telegraph picture

Fifty-six Muzaffarpur Institute of Technology (MIT) students, facing police cases, have been denied character certificates for their alleged misdeeds in 2012.

Most of the erring students were from the 2008 and 2009 batches, who cleared their Bachelor of Engineering course in 2012 and 2013.

The students had posed serious law and order problems in 2012 by indulging in vandalism both inside and outside the institute besides caught for eve-teasing.

Their names figured in three FIRs lodged with Brahmpura police station. Tired of their nuisance, residents of Daudpur Kothi, a colony adjacent to the MIT, informed the students’ misdeed to chief minister Nitish Kumar by meeting him at Patna in September 2012. They sought immediate action against the unruly students. Consequently, the Brahmpura police registered their names under “gunda register” to deny them character certificates in a bid to teach the students a lesson.

The MIT disciplinary committee, too, was miffed with the students.

The committee, headed by principal Dhuruv Prasad, awarded two black dots on the college-leaving certificate to the students, with the consent of the other members of the panel. The dots symbolise a “taint in character”.

The station house officer of Brahmpura, Sunil Kumar, said: “Forty-five students of 2008 and 2009 batches applied for character certificates in May. They needed the certificates from the police stations (where FIRs have been lodged against them), to sit for the entrance tests conducted for admissions into the IITs.”

According to the IIT brochure, certificate of good conduct and character from the head of institution last attended and three reference letters are a must for admission into the premier technology cradle.

David (name changed) of 2008 batch said he has cleared the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering and needed the character certificate to get admission into an IIT.

“I have been running from pillar to post to get a character certificate because my name figured in the FIR lodged by a few residents of Daudpur Kothi in connection with a commotion that took place in 2012. I have nothing to do with the unruly mob, which attacked the residents. I was in my hostel when the police raided to look for the culprits. I was caught,” David said.

The SHO, however, said he was helpless in issuing character certificates.