PATNA, Aug. 15 -- The Patna high court referred the case of an MBBS student expelled for allegedly having a fellow student impersonate him in an examination to a division bench. The court found its own view clashed with an earlier ruling by a coordinate bench regarding the discretion a university's vice-chancellor has in deciding punishment for such offences. Justice Harish Kumar, hearing the writ petition filed by Arvind Kumar Mehta, a third-year MBBS student at Government Medical College, Bettiah, flagged the conflict in his order on August 10 (uploaded on the HC portal on August 12) and sent the matter for adjudication by a larger bench with the chief justice's consent. Justice Kumar, while referring the matter to the division bench, observed: "Copying and cheating in examinations is like a plague. It is a pandemic which can ruin society and the educational system of any country. If the same is left unchecked or if leniency is shown, the same can have a deleterious effect. For any country's progress, the integrity of the educational system has to be infallible. Whether it is paper setters maintaining utmost confidentiality, students not cheating, invigilators being vigilant, examiners doing their job with utmost alacrity knowing that the future of students is in their hands, universities and colleges not tampering with results - the conduct of all stakeholders has to reflect commitment and also be unblemished."...