Mumbai: The CET Cell has filed a complaint with the state’s Cyber Cell and the Azad Maidan Police Station after two videos alleging discrepancies in the provisional merit list for engineering admissions, along with claims of manipulation of exam centres, surfaced on social media and were widely circulated among students. The cell has asked the police not only to identify the source of the videos and the persons involved in creating, uploading and circulating them, but also to verify the veracity of the claims made in them. No FIR has been registered in the matter yet. Around 2.35 lakh students registered for the centralised admission process (CAP) for engineering.A person in one of the videos alleged that students who scored higher marks (100th percentile) in the MHT-CET physics-chemistry-mathematics (PCM) examination scored poorly in the state board exams, claiming that this is almost ‘impossible’. In the same video, an audio clip played by the person alleged that CET examination centres can be manipulated and that they can help students secure the 99th percentile in the CET in return for money.Clarifying that the mismatch between HSC and CET scores is not an anomaly but occurs across score bands and entrance examinations, CET Cell Commissioner Dileep Sardesai said that 202 students who scored between the 98th and 100th percentile in the MHT-CET secured 40-50% in the PCM subjects in the HSC board examinations. He added that the reverse was also true, with 50 students scoring above 90% in the HSC board examinations but below the 30th percentile in the MHT-CET.Sharing data across different score bands, he said that 69 students who scored between the 40th and 50th percentile in the MHT-CET secured between the 90th and 100th percentile in JEE (Main) as well, and that there was no pattern in the same. Sardesai said that the format of the board and the entrance examinations are different and such mismatches in scores occur across entrance examinations. The CET Cell authorities will analyse the data further and see the background of the 202 students and the exam centres from where they appeared.About the allegation on manipulation in allotment of centres, Sardesai said that these are centrally allotted by the CET cell and in an automated manner. He said that this year the CET cell has also limited the use of exam centres to computer laboratories in govt and private engineering colleges.Of the total 25 sessions conducted for the PCM exams, it was found that GH Raisoni College of Engineering (Pune) had 222 students who scored above the 99th percentile in the exam, followed by Thakur College (Kandivali) with 133 students, and GH Raisoni Technical Institute (120), Govt Engineering College (108) and Shah and Anchor Kutchhi Engineering College (99). These centres also had more students appearing for the exam, said the CET Cell authorities, adding that these will be analysed further too.
