Karnataka peon with 99.5% in Class 10 fails to read, write, probe ordered

Mangalore Today News Network

Koppal, May 23, 2024: A local court in Karnataka’s Koppal has ordered a probe into the academic records of a peon after he scored remarkably high test scores in the Class 10 exam.

23-year-old Prabhu Laxmikanth Lokare scored 99.5 per cent in the Class 10 exam and secured a job as a peon in the court.

Lokare, a resident of Sindhanur taluk in Raichur district, had only studied up to Class 7 and then started working as a cleaner at the Koppal court.

On April 22, 2024, Lokare’s name appeared on the final merit list of the selection for the peon’s recruitment exam based on his Class 10 marks, and he started working at Koppal Court. However, his academic achievements came under scrutiny as the judge in the court had seen and heard about the latter’s struggles with reading and writing in the local court.

After developing suspicion, the judge filed a private complaint with the police to investigate Prabhu’s academic record.

The FIR in the case, filed on April 26, stated that Prabhu took the tenth standard exam directly after seventh standard and scored 623 out of 625 marks, yet he cannot read or write in Kannada, English, or Hindi, raising serious doubts about the legitimacy of his education.

In his complaint, the judge observed that fraudulent academic achievements disadvantage meritorious students and called for an investigation into whether others have secured government jobs through similar means.

He also requested the police to compare Prabhu’s handwriting with that of his Class 10 exam answer sheets.

Meanwhile, Lokar said that he appeared in the Class 10 exams in 2017-18 as a private candidate at an institution in the state’s Bagalkot district, and that the exams were conducted by the Delhi Education Board.