The Legal Profession Qualifying Board director Khalid Yusoff must be answerable to the public over his alleged involvement in the tampering of Certificate of Legal Practice examination marks, said a DAP leader today.

Party deputy chairperson Karpal Singh said Khalid owes the public an explanation over claims made by the Qualifying Board yesterday.

In a statement yesterday, board secretary Abdul Wahab Said Ahmad revealed that in addition to the leaking of July and October examination questions, it was discovered that the marks had also been tampered with.

The board had sat through a marathon meeting over two days to discuss its earlier decision to nullify the results of the two exams following the discovery of a leak in the Evidence paper.

In the meeting, the board, among others, had overturned its previous decision and said that a number of answer scripts which had been illegally marked up have been re-graded.

Abdul Wahab also said that Khalid could be responsible for the tampering of marks.

"Upon investigations to verify the effects of such leakage, the members of the Qualifying Board found a substantial number of irregularities between marks awarded by examiners and the marks disclosed by the director to the members of the Qualifying Board in the master result sheets submitted for their approval," he said.

Abdul Wahab added that Khalid oversaw the preparation, conduct and marking of the examination after which he would table the results together with the examiners' report to the board for approval.

"The results so tabled are ordinarily approved by members of the board," disclosed Abdul Wahab.

Review past results

If that was the case, Karpal said, the board should then review all CLP results in the years in which Khalid had been the director, which was since the inception of the CLP in 1984.

"What about possible irregularities in the past results tabled by the board director?" asked the senior lawyer in a statement.

He also said that the board must also equally take the blame for its "cavalier attitude" in taking things for granted when the results were tabled before them.

The members of the Qualifying Board are Attorney-General Ainum Mohd Saaid, High Court Judge Abdul Wahab Patail, Federal Court Siti Norma Yaacob, Bar Council chairperson Mah Weng Kwai, Federal Court chief registrar Abdul Wahab who also doubles up as the secretary and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Assoc Prof Shamsuddin Suhor.

The board yesterday distanced itself from Khalid by stating that the board members only assumed office at various times in 2001 and that they "are distinct from the management of the CLP examination headed by its director".

Khalid does not sit on the board.

Karpal, however, said that the members of the board should resign en bloc to restore public confidence in the CLP.