Amidst a controversy about malpractices in competitive examinations around the country, the Uttar Pradesh government on Tuesday passed a proposal to promulgate an ordinance to ensure stricter punishment for those who leak papers and candidates benefiting from unfair means when they take public tests.
The Union government took a similar step in the face of public anger about paper leaks and other alleged irregularities in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test for seats in medical colleges. It also faced criticism for the cancellation the University Grants Commission-National Eligibility Test for assistant professor positions because its integrity may have been compromised.
In the wake of these developments, the Union government on June 21 notified the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act provding for jail sentences of up to 10 years and a penalty of up to Rs 1 crore if paper leaks and exam malpractices are the result of “organised crime”.
But is harsher punishment really the solution to the problem?
Already, at least eight states have passed laws to prevent paper leak and other malpractices.
Despite this, paper leaks over the last five years have resulted in 41 recruitment exams across 15 states being cancelled, hampering the employment hopes of 1.4 crore applicants, The Indian Express reported in February. In the case of NEET itself, the Central Bureau of Investigation is probing alleged irregularities in the examinations held in 2018, 2021 and 2022.
What are the existing laws and how effective have they been?
Across states, the laws broadly define “unfair means” as candidates using unauthorised help or unauthorised written material to gain an advantage. With regard to the authorities responsible for conducting the examinations, the laws prohibit them from disclosing question papers or any information about the tests.
Some of the state laws have specific provisions against impersonating candidates and using electronic aids.
But many of these laws have failed to prevent paper leaks.
For example, Uttar Pradesh way back in 1998 introduced a law aimed to preventing unfair means being used in examinations. Among other things, the law deals with those who unauthorisedly possess question papers or disclose their contents.
But as recently as in February, two examinations for recruiting police constables and review and assistant review officers in the state were cancelled after allegations that the papers had been leaked. This hurt the prospects of more than 55 lakh candidates.
Before these two tests, the papers of at least nine examinations in Uttar Pradesh since 2017 had been leaked.
A similar situation has unfolded in Andhra Pradesh. The state passed a law against paper leaks in 1997. The law penalises those convicted of leaking question papers with a jail term of up to seven years and fine of up to Rs 1 lakh. But in 2022, question papers of Class 10 exams were leaked in many districts. The police arrested 69 persons, including 45 teachers in the case.
However, even states with stricter laws than those in Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh have failed to prevent paper leaks.
In April 2022, Rajasthan introduced the Rajasthan Public Examination (Measures for Prevention of Unfair Means in Recruitment) Act . Those convicted of leaking or abetting the leak of question papers could be imprisoned for up to 10 years and or pay fines of up to Rs 10 crore.
But just a month after the law was passed, a recruitment exam for police constables had to be cancelled due to a paper leak. Months later, in December, the level-II exam of Rajasthan Eligibility Exam for Teachers was cancelled for the same reason.
Why are strict laws not enough?
While the Union government’s new law is a welcome move, it cannot be seen as a “golden bullet” to stop paper leaks, Advocate Mathews Nedumpara told Scroll. He is representing a group of petitioners who have moved the Supreme Court seeking a stay on the results of the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test and a re-examination.
“Making laws stricter is not the answer,” Nedumpara said. “There is provision for capital punishment for murder. Has that stopped murders?”
The lawyer said that while making laws might not stop paper leaks, the authorities must use the law to clamp down on the nexus that facilitates them. “Question papers are leaked in exchange for lakhs of rupees,” Nedumpara said. “When such huge sums of money is involved, there is very likely to be a money-laundering angle. I think the Enforcement Directorate should be included in the investigation of such cases to look into the money trail.”
Shivangi Mishra, one of the petitioners Nedumpara is representing, said that in order to prevent paper leaks, it is necessary to secure the custody of question papers from the printing press to the examination centres. Mishra, 18, had appeared for the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test in Indore on May 5.
“As soon as we came out of the exam hall, we saw social media posts about the paper leak,” Mishra told Scroll. “Later, we found that there were YouTube videos and Twitter posts about the leak even before the exam was held. This shows that the security of question papers had already been breached.”
The custody of question papers in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test has come under the scanner after news that at least one company entrusted with transporting them to examination centres iNirmalya Paul n Jharkhand's Hazaribagh had used e-rickshaws to do so.
Nirmalya Paul, one of Mishra’s co-petitioners in the case, had questions about the National Testing Agency, which conducted the examination. Paul (23), a resident of West Bengal’s Purulia, had appeared for the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test in Patna.
“We came to know after the exam that the National Testing Agency outsources the setting of question papers,” Paul said. “If the question setting is outsourced, there will obviously be more scope for corruption.”
Scroll has reported on the spotty record of the National Testing Agency, which was formed in 2017 to conduct several entrance and recruitment exams that had earlier been held by various universities and organisations.
Mishra and Paul are among National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test candidates who got in touch with Right to Information activist Vivek Pandey, a whistleblower in the alleged paper leak case. Pandey helped the petitioners to draft their plea to the Supreme Court.
Pandey told Scroll that weeks before the exam, he had posted on social media that the question paper had been leaked. He believes that using paper leaks could not be curbed by using legal methods because the cases drag on for years. “Even when someone is arrested, they come out on bail and carry on with their business,” he said.
Pandey’s argument is not unfounded. Sanjeev Mukhiya, who is being investigated as the lynchpin of the alleged paper leak in this year's National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test, had been arrested twice before, in 2014 and 2016, in two previous cases of paper leaks. Earlier this year, his son was arrested in a case related to a teacher recruitment exam in Bihar.
In the case of alleged irregularities in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test in 2018, one of the main persons accused, Ashwani Tomar, had been arrested in 2016 in a medical entrance paper leak case in Telangana.
Pandey told Scroll that action before an exam would prove more effective than investigations after it.
“What we need is contact tracing like we did during the Covid-19 pandemic,” Pandey said. “There are only about 100 people across the country who control the paper leak nexus. A month or two before major examinations, the police should start monitoring their activities, call records and social media.”
He also said that another way to prevent paper leaks would be to clamp down on the medical students who are employed by the paper leak masterminds to solve question papers. “In most cases, they hire first-year or second-year medical students because the brokers cannot themselves solve question papers even after they are leaked,” Pandey explained. “There should be some mechanism to stop this. Medical colleges can make attendance compulsory for students on the days before the exam.”
