A sessions court in Mumbai on Tuesday rejected the anticipatory bail application of a temporary peon of the Mumbai University, accused of leaking B Com Semester VI question papers at the Centre for Distance and Online Education (CDOE) last month.

The court noted that such leaks do great damage to the education and merits of students.

“The prosecution had relied on the CCTV footage from the CCTV system installed in the CDOE building, which showed this accused has used his mobile to take photographs of question papers. The offence is very serious. Such leakage in the examination papers has great damage to the education and the merits of the student,” the court said in its order on Tuesday.

It said that there is a necessity of full investigation of the offence, all persons who are involved in the offence are established.

“There is a necessity to know how many students have used this leak and how they contacted this accused and for doing this investigation, custodial interrogation is necessary,” the court said.
The court rejected the pre-arrest bail plea of 36-year-old Sudesh Indap.

A complaint was filed in April by a professor of the University, that it was noticed in CCTV camera footage that while printing of question papers was ongoing at the examination control room, Indap secretly took photographs of the question papers on his phone between April 13-April 15.

An investigation was conducted internally and a committee found that Indap had forwarded the papers to others for financial gains.

An FIR was filed at the Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) police station on sections related to criminal breach of trust of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, and relevant sections of theMaharashtra Prevention of Malpractices at University, Board and other Specified Examination Act.

Indap had said that he was falsely implicated and pointed to the delay in filing of the FIR. The police opposed his plea stating that there is a possibility of involvement of other accused.