Kasaragod: The management of Palakkal Greenwood College has suspended Principal-in-charge Ajeesh P, who is facing charges for leaking the BCA question paper in a previous Kannur University exam. The college management took the action a day after the Bekal police registered a case against Ajeesh.

He has been charged with criminal breach of trust and cheating after a preliminary inquiry found prima facie evidence against him, said Bekal Station House Officer and Assistant Superintendent of Police Aparna O.

Kannur University emails password-protected question papers to college principals, who are responsible for printing and distributing them. Principals of colleges with more than 500 students receive the PIN to access the paper two-and-a-half hours before the exam. Those with fewer than 500 students receive it one hour before, she said.

Ajeesh, who also teaches computer science at the college, told police on Friday that he had only shared probable questions from previous years. When Onmanorama contacted him before his appearance at the police station on Friday, Ajeesh claimed the questions were shared well before he received the PIN, and that he could prove it. The evidence, however, belies his confidence.

The leaked paper — Data Mining and Data Warehousing — was part of the sixth-semester Bachelor of Computer Application (BCA) exam held at Greenwoods Arts and Science College, Palakkunnu, near Bekal in Kasaragod. Conducted on April 2, it was the final paper of the semester exams that began on March 18.

Registrar Prof Joby K Jose said the university emails password-protected question papers to college principals two-and-a-half hours before each exam. "The PINs to open the PDF files are shared only with principals, who are responsible for taking prints and distributing them to students," he said.

On the day of the final exam, the university’s exam squad caught a student copying at Greenwoods. "The student told the squad that the questions had been shared by the college principal in a student WhatsApp group," said the Registrar. The squad reported the alleged breach to the university the same day.