Cheating, papers leaks write off even those who sincerely prepare for school examinations, college entrance and government jobs as shown in highly rated ‘12th Fail’ film. The Centre today introduced the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Bill, 2024 in Parliament to deal with cases of exam paper leak and tampering with answer sheets in collusion with government officials and other malpractices found in states such as Rajasthan, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Himachal Pradesh.
Though these states brought out their own laws to deal with the menace of exam paper leak, but it needs to be seen if a central law can be of more help in such a situation.
What Does the Draft Bill Entail?
The Union Cabinet proposes minimum three to five years of imprisonment, however, for cases of organised crimes, the accused will be sentenced to 5-10 years in jail, and a minimum fine of Rs 1 crore will be imposed. For service provider firms in examinations, a fine of up to Rs 1 crore, and recovery of proportionate cost of examination have been proposed as punishment. The firm will also be barred from conducting a public examination for four years.
The bill, piloted by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) under the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, will cover all recruitment and entrance exams such as Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), Staff Selection Commission (SSC), Railways, and banking recruitment exams, Common University Entrance Test (CUET), National Eligibility and Entrance Test (NEET), and Joint Entrance Examination (JEE). All the computer-based examinations conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) will come under the purview of the bill.
While introducing the bill in Parliament, MoS (Science & Technology) Jitendra Singh said, “The objective is to bring in greater transparency, fairness and credibility to the public examination systems, and to reassure the youths that their sincere and genuine efforts will be fairly rewarded and their futures are safe”.
The Need to Improve Transparency in Exams
According to the brief document of the draft bill, the government has introduced several reforms to enhance “transparency” in examinations for recruitment as well as admission to higher education institutions.
Many states had to cancel or were unable to declare results of public exams in recent past due to unfair practices and means adopted by “anti-social, criminal elements”. It was observed that organised groups and mafia elements were involved in some paper leak cases. Therefore, the government decided to “effectively prevent and deter” these elements from jeopardising the future and careers of millions of aspiring youths of the country, the draft bill stated.
Why was there a need for the bill?
The rampant exam paper leaks in Rajasthan had become an electoral issue, prompting the state government to bring a new law to rein in the irregularities. The Rajasthan Assembly in July 2023 passed a bill to increase the punishment for those involved in government recruitment exam paper leaks from a 10-year jail term to life imprisonment.
Similarly, the Gujarat and UP governments too had last year brought in laws with stricter punishment and fine up to Rs 1 crore for those found guilty of such an act. The 24th report of the seventh State Law Commission, Uttar Pradesh on the UP Public Examination (Prevention of unfair means, paper-leak and solver gang activities) Bill, 2023 sought to deal with the issue.
The laws introduced by different states were prompted by several question paper leak cases surfacing in 2022 across Uttarakhand, UP, Himachal and Bihar, due to which the state government recruitment exams had to be cancelled.
The draft bill highlights that there is no specific substantive law at national level to deal with unfair means adopted or offences committed by persons, organised groups, or any other agency/organisation that adversely impacts the conduct of public examinations by Central government and its agencies.
“Therefore, it is imperative that the elements both within and outside the examination systems, that exploit these vulnerabilities are identified and effectively dealt with by way of a comprehensive Central legislation. There is a need to prevent such criminal elements from playing with lives and hopes of genuine and sincere youths who appear in these examinations,” the document read.
According to the ministry, the draft bill is aimed at effectively and legally deterring persons, organised groups or institutions that indulge in various unfair means and adversely impact the public examination systems for monetary or wrongful gains.
However, providing protection to students appearing for the exam, the draft bill clearly states that ‘bonafide candidates/students’ as defined in the bill “shall not be liable for action within the purview of the bill’.
The bill also proposes to set up a High level National Technical Committee on Public Examinations, which will look into developing protocols, fool-proof IT security system, ensuring comprehensive electronic surveillance of the examinations centres and formulating national standards and service levels for both IT and physical infrastructure to conduct an examination.
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