The Centre has introduced a Bill in Lok Sabha to penalise “malpractices in public examinations” with jail term of 3 to 10 years and fine up to over Rs 1 crore.
The Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Bill, 2024, is applicable to central recruitment and entrance exams conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), Staff Selection Commission (SSC), Railway Recruitment Boards (RRBs), Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS), and National Testing Agency (NTA).
The NTA conducts exams for admission to higher institutions, like the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) for engineering, National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test (NEET) for medical, and Common University Entrance Test (CUET) for undergraduate and post-graduate studies.
All central ministries and departments, as well as their offices for recruitment, will also come under the purview of the new law when passed.
“At present, there is no specific substantive law to deal with unfair means adopted or offences committed by various entities involved in the conduct of public examinations by the central government and its agencies,” states the Bill, which was introduced by Jitendra Singh, Minister of State, Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions.
While the Bill provides punishment for “persons, organised groups or institutions” indulging in unfair means for “monetary or wrongful gains”, candidates appearing for the exams have been left out of its purview.
Section 3 of the Bill defines “unfair means” as “any act or omission done or caused to be done by any person or group of persons or institutions, and include but not be restricted to, any of the following acts for monetary or wrongful gain: leakage of question paper or answer key or part thereof; participating in collusion with others to effect leakage of question paper or answer key; accessing or taking possession of question paper or an optical mark recognition response sheet without authority.”
Section 9 states that all offences shall be cognizable, non-bailable and non-compoundable.
“Any person or persons resorting to unfair means and offences under this Act, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term not less than three years but which may extend to five years and with fine up to Rs 10 lakh. In case of default of payment of fine, an additional punishment of imprisonment shall be imposed,” states Section 10 of the Bill.
The Bill provides for harsher punishment for “organised” paper leaks, defining the offence as an “unlawful activity committed by a person or a group of persons indulging in unfair means in collusion and conspiracy to pursue or promote a shared interest for wrongful gain in respect of a public examination”.
“If a person or a group of persons, including the examination authority or service provider or any other institution, commits an organised crime, he shall be punished with imprisonment for a term not less than five years but which may extend to ten years, and with fine which shall not be less than Rs 1 crore. In case of default of payment of fine, an additional punishment of imprisonment shall be imposed,” states Section 11 of the Bill.
“The objective of the Bill is to bring greater transparency, fairness and credibility to the public examination systems and to reassure the youth that their sincere and genuine efforts will be fairly rewarded and their future is safe,” the Bill states.
While the provisions will be binding for central public examination authorities, it will serve as a model draft for states. Some states like Gujarat and Assam already have their own legislation in this regard.
Besides paper leaks in various states, there have been such cases at the central level too. In March last year, the Delhi Police arrested five men who had allegedly leaked the National Technical Research Organisation’s (NTRO) recruitment exam. Last month, the CBI conducted searches at 12 places across several states following the alleged leak of an exam conducted by the Western Railway’s Railway Recruitment Centre.
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