Penalty Of Upto Rs 10 Crore, 10 Years Prison For Cheating, Leaking Papers During Govt Job Exams In This State

Good education is extremely essential for one to succeed in life. An educated person is an asset to the society as he conducts his life consciously. Education is the fountainhead of all human development. However, as they say that everything has a scope of abuse and misuse, even the education system is plagued with things like paper leak and cheating in recruitment exams.

To curtail this evil, stringent measures have been taken by many governments. Jumping on the bandwagon, the Rajasthan Assembly on Thursday passed by voice vote a Bill providing imprisonment up to 10 years and a fine of Rs 10 crore for offences like paper leak and cheating in recruitment exams.

Bill Aimed To Check Paper Leak & Unfair Means

Higher Education Minister Rajendra Yadav said the Bill aimed at checking instances of paper leak and use of unfair means in recruitment exams for posts under the state government, including autonomous bodies, boards and corporations. A provision of attachment and confiscation of property has also been made in the Bill.

While sharing the pain of the aspirants who hope to get a government job, Leader of Opposition Gulab Chand Kataria got emotional.

As tears rolled down his eyes, Kataria said that “You have sold all government jobs to those who hold money. I am speaking a bitter truth. Get the post-mortem done of all people who got the job in last eight years, half of them would come out to be bogus”.

As per the provisions, a jail term of up to three years and a fine not less than Rs 1 lakh shall be there if any person is taking unauthorised help in a public examination from any person, group or from any material.

The imprisonment will be from five to 10 years and fine from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 10 crore if any case any person impersonates or leak, attempt to leak or conspires to leak question paper, procures or attempts to possess question paper in an unauthorised manner or solves/attempts to solve/seek assistance to solve question paper in an unauthorised manner or assist the examinee in unauthorised manner.

If in case an examinee is convicted, the examinee shall be debarred from a period of 2 years.

If investigating officer has reasons to believe that any property represents proceeds of any offence under the proposed act, then he can seize such movable or immovable property with prior approval of the state government, according to the Bill. Where it is not practicable to seize such property, the investigating officer can make an order of attachment, directing that such property shall not be transferred.

If for the offence, anyone from the management has been found guilty, determined by the designated court then they shall be liable to pay all cost and expenditure related to the examination.

All offences specified under the act shall be cognisable, non-bailable and non-compoundable.

A statement said that “In matter of recruitment to the posts under the state government, the leak of question papers not only betrays the trust of the general public but the state too suffers substantial administrative cost when examinations have to be called off”.

According to the statement of objectives and reasons “A fair and reasonable process of selection to posts, subject to the norm of equality of opportunity under Article 16 (1) of the Constitution of India, is a constitutional requirement. A fair and reasonable recruitment process is a fundamental requirement of Article 14 as well”.

Prevention of Unfair Means Act

In order to curb irregularities and the use of unfair means in public examinations, the state government enacted the Rajasthan Public Examination (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 1992.

It said that since the inception of the enactment, three decades have passed. It said that the issue has assumed dimension of organised crime and involves huge pecuniary advantages to nefarious persons.

The statement said that “Since the Act of 1992 is not serving the purpose of tackling this menace, the state government has decided to bring a new law to prevent use of unfair means in public examinations conducted for purpose of recruitment and to limit the scope of the Act of 1992 to public examinations conducted for the purpose of award degrees, certificates etc”.

Due to the paper leak, in the month of February, the state government had cancelled the REET level-two examination.

Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot had also announced to bring a Bill to curb cheating in examinations, looking at the seriousness of the matter.

A CBI probe into the REET paper leak case has been demanded by the opposition BJP. The same is being currently investigated by the Special Operation Group of the Rajasthan Police.