The Tribhuvan University (TU) Executive Council has asked Institute of Medicine (IoM) to decide on the legitimacy of MBBS entrance exam held in October.

The TU Executive Council confirmed that there had been anomalies in the MBBS entrance exam and that questions were leaked.

The TU dispatched a letter to the IoM on Thursday stating that there had been irregularities in the entrance exam and that it should take “necessary actions”.

Dr Jagdish Agrawal, dean of the IoM, said the examination board and the faculty board “will resolve the issue in the next few days.

On October 14, over 15 students and fraudsters were arrested from various examination centres for using sophisticated wireless devices to cheat. Following the incident, the IoM had decided to withhold the results to carry out an investigation.

The TU had formed a committee, led by Chintamani Pokhrel, to investigate into the matter. Dr Mahesh Khakurel, former director of the TU Teaching Hospital, and Bishnu Khanal, chief of Monitoring and Evaluation Unit of the TU, among others were the members.

The TU Executive Council’s meeting on Wednesday to discuss the matter had failed to make any headway.

“The Nepal Medical Council has said question papers were leaked. Police investigation also says the same. Even our report signed by IoM doctors indicates that rules were violated in the examination,” said TU Vice-chancellor Tirtha Khaniya, adding that since there were irregularities, the IoM has been asked to take a decision.

Khaniya said the TU’s law has vested the IoM with the right to take decisions on such matters hence the case has been referred to the IoM.

The racket involved in helping students cheat was found in possession of answers to 60 multiple choice questions.  When police tallied the answers with the questions, 14 of them matched.

Based on this evidence, police concluded that question papers were leaked.

A total of 8,827 students had appeared in the entrance examination conducted by the IoM for 625 seats of seven medical colleges.

The examination was held at 17 centres across the country.

It was found that fake examinees were taking exams in some centres while in others, students were found cheating using wireless electronic devices.

Investigations found that the students had paid as much as Rs 500,000 to the fraudsters who had promised “successful results”.

TU’s MBBS calendar starts from November 17, but this time, it is going to be delayed due to the question paper leak issue.

Many students who took the entrance examination have been demanding that the IoM conduct re-examination.