Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS) has again come under the scanner because of an examination anomaly.
Questions have been raised over Deepak Pankaj, who scored abnormally high marks in the entrance examination of the master of chirurgical (MCh) urology course in 2014. He attempted 95 out of 100 questions and got 95 of them right.
Deepak is the son of Dr Dilip Kumar Yadav, the head of the preventive and social medicine department of IGIMS. When he was the hospital's director, Dilip had been embroiled in a controversy regarding purchase of equipment.
Sources said the vigilance department has initiated an inquiry into Deepak's scores a fortnight ago and has questioned IGIMS director N.R. Biswas, controller of examination Binod Kumar and other officials.
Biswas confirmed the vigilance team's inquiry. "We have provided all the papers to the investigating team. We are cooperating as much as we can," he told The Telegraph over phone.
Dilip disconnected the phone when this correspondent tried to contact him. However, he called back around 30 minutes later and said: "I have no clue (about the controversy)."
Last year, eyebrows were raised over the appointment of Anita Kumari, daughter of health minister Ramdhani Singh, to the post of a Grade III librarian at the institute. Anomalies in entrance examinations for postgraduate courses of IGIMS, including biochemistry and radiology courses, were also reported to various authorities in the past three years but no cognisance was taken by the authorities.
Deepak's abnormal scores in the MCh urology exam was highlighted in 2014 after which a committee was constituted by the IGIMS administration, which came to the conclusion that the result was not free of anomaly. The institute cancelled the exam and held a re-examination after the controversy picked up pace. Candidates were selected on the basis of re-examination and those selected are now in the third year of the course at the institute.
Sources said Vikas Kumar, a student who appeared in the entrance examination, had also complained to various authorities alleging irregularities in the MCh urology exam and that the health department later asked the vigilance department to conduct a probe into the matter. The vigilance department referred the case to the health department in 2015 saying that as the matter was related to IGIMS, the college administration should first investigate.
Sources said this year, the matter was again referred to the vigilance department after which it started a probe around 15 days ago.
Deepak had submitted a petition in Patna High Court in 2014 demanding reconsidering of the IGIMS decision of re-conducting the exam. The court dismissed his petition.
Binod said: "There is no need of a vigilance inquiry into the matter because the institute itself cancelled the selection process after finding anomalies in the exam and conducted a re-exam for the same."
However, many IGIMS officials and doctors believe the matter should be probed by the vigilance team because there had been many cases of anomalies in appointment and selection of candidates.
"Even the question setter would not have able to score 95 out of 100," said an IGIMS doctor. "There have been many scams at IGIMS. An inquiry needs to be initiated, otherwise these things continue to occur."
