MUKTA GUPTA, J.

1. The Appellant, a student of B.Tech Course (Information Technology) in Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology was studying in the second year of the said course. On 23rd April, 2009 the Appellant along with two of his friends stayed back in the hostel for preparation of the ongoing exams. However, on the said late evening/night Ishaan, Shashank and the Appellant went to the pool room and then to the computer room. It is the case of the Respondents that Ishaan took the question paper of Theory of Computation (TOC) which was to be conducted on 24th April, 2009 by unauthorisedly accessing the electronic/other records in the room of Dr. Astrid, Academic Coordinator of the Exams. Ishaan gave the question paper to Shashank who copied the same and the Appellant stood there watching their activities. Ishaan also tampered with the electronic data of the academic coordinator. On discovery of the incident when the erring students were called on 25th April, 2009 they gave their written statement in their own handwriting. The statement dated 25th April, 2009 of the Appellant is reproduced:-

“We entered the IIIT premises around 10.30 pm. After that I was in the pool room. Ishaan & Shashank entered the room opening the window using the AC window. Shashank found the paper he brought it to the chairs copied it and Ishaan still was in the room searching Astrid Ma’am’s laptop, then Shashank copied the paper and Ishaan closed the room and we came back. And I was near the window when Ishaan started printing. As told by Ishaan,

When Ishaan was using the laptop he tried to print some scores, but the printer was out of paper and he gave the cancel command and shut down the laptop.

I never entered the room, and was not involved in tampering the marks.

Sd/-

(Pranshu S. Raghuvansh)”

2. Subsequently, the Appellant was called to the Emergency Senate on 28th April, 2009 where he tendered a prepared written statement which is reproduced as under :-

“The day before TOC paper i.e. on 23rd April, 2009 I came to the hostel for preparation. By evening I had covered most of the topics. Ishaan came to me and asked whether I was prepared for the paper, I told him that I had prepared for 60-70%. Then Ishaan, suggested that we should go to IIIT to play pool or counter strike. When we (Ishaan, Shashank & me) entered IIIT (around 10.30 pm), the guard stopped Ishaan for entry. I went forward to the pool room to set the balls, from the pool room window I noticed Ishaan opening and entering the window of Astrid madam’s room, Shashank was standing at the window, I was surprised and puzzled at this action. Ishaan gave some paper to Shashank and Shashank took the paper to the chairs in front of the classes. Seeing this I left the pool room & when I reached there I found that it was the next day’s TOC paper. I was simply shocked to see this. After some time I said I heard something on the roof and excused myself from the place. I went to the roof and started thinking about what was happening. Then I came back and told them that it was nothing. When I returned I saw that Ishaan was still in the room doing something in Astrid madam’s Laptop. I asked Ishaan through the door what he was doing but he couldn’t hear me, so I went to the window to ask him what he was doing, then I saw that he was printing out something (some kind of table), then he hastily shut down the computer and came out of the room with printout. When Shashank copied the paper he returned it to Ishaan who put it back into the room. Then I insisted them to leave the place and after that we returned back to hostel.

On the way back to the hostel I realized that they have come to IIITD with some ulterior motive and I was also made a part of something serious unknowingly, only way out of this was to report the matter to the authorities, which I never had the guts to do. I decided not to see the questions or their answers and do my best on my o