BENGALURU: The Consortium of Medical, Engineering, Dental Colleges of Karnataka (ComedK), which conducts the ComedK UG Entrance Test (UGET), has barred 36 students from participating in the counseling process on suspicion of poor performance.ComedK UGET, which holds the key to 32,670 engineering seats in engineering colleges of Karnataka, was held on May 9 at 400 centers in 280 cities. About 1,10,774 candidates (36,954 Karnataka and 73,820 non-Karnataka) appeared for the computer-based exam which was held in two phases. The percentage of candidates was considered to declare the ranking.When the results were declared on May 29, not a single student from Karnataka made it to the Top 10 list. The top five in the first six rounds were from Jamshedpur. Rank 3 was from Uttarakhand. 7th position comes from Andhra Pradesh, 8th position from Chhattisgarh, 9th position from Punjab and 10th from Bihar. When asked about the number of leading people in one district, Kumar told TOI that the team would look at the CCTV footage and animations to ascertain the facts.The students, who are the suspects, appeared for three exams – Jai Sri Infotech, Govinda Vidyalaya and Creative Computers – in Jamshedpur. Most of the suspects are in the top 500, and four of them are in the Top 10. ComedK has personally informed each of the identified candidates and given them an opportunity to appear before the ComedK officials in Bengaluru on or before July 10, 2026.Candidates will be allowed to review the confirmation of participation and provide their explanation before a final decision is taken regarding withdrawal or withdrawal. These candidates will not be allowed to participate in the ongoing counseling and selection of seats until the inquiry is completed.According to ComedK officials, the students are believed to have received external assistance for the exam, which was provided through the administrators, who also received information from ComedK.Officials of ComedK said that as part of its implementation process, it conducted a number of academic, administrative and legal studies after completing the compilation and publication of the final results. During the inspection, some anomalies were found at the Jamshedpur site.“There are six methods that we look at in educational and administrative research. For example, how do students do in the first 30 minutes and the last 30 minutes of the exam? The exam is a three-hour paper with 180 questions. We expect students to spend at least one minute with each question. There are cases where we found that the students were not very active at the beginning, but they finished the questions 9 hours ago in the 80- hour ago. We examined the CCTV footage frame-by-frame of these students and found ample evidence of wrongdoing. This proof will be given to the students when they explain,” said S Kumar, secretary, ComedK.In the same way, we have our academic evaluations: We check the quality of the question paper, we use methods such as factor analysis, confusion index and see students answering the wrong questions. We also looked at 12 classes to see if they matched the students’ abilities in terms of their performance on the ComedK test. We have been doing it since 2006,” he said.“Detailed verification, with the help of ComedK test providers and technical partners, has provided conclusive evidence of the involvement of candidates and staff in misconduct.”Kumar said that the police complaint will be filed when the students will be allowed to present their arguments on July 10. “ComedK has informed the admissions control committee (AOC) about the incident, to ensure that the legal monitoring body is informed of all the developments to maintain the integrity of the admissions process. All the actions initiated are governed by the Com202K Information-Comed. Counseling Handbook, which empowers ComedK to ban candidates, ban candidates from future exams and take other necessary actions when it is recognized that there is nothing wrong,” said Dr. Kumar.