While one section of the country is busy debating over the ban on various things, an education scam seems to be brewing in India. Recently, Ruby Rai, the Bihar Class 12 topper, was arrested for cheating during the examination. Rai was arrested by the police after she miserably failed in the re-test and interview conducted by the Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) as part of the probe into the case. 20 people including Rai have been arrested in connection with the cheating scam. The kingpin in the alleged Bihar school board cheating syndicate is said to be a Bacha Rai, who runs a private college in the state. Rai, who had topped in Political Science, had come under the scanner after she told the media that the subject dealt with cooking. Ruby Rai’s ‘shocking’ essay on famous poet ‘Tulsidas ji pranam’ — was another joke, such low IQ students coming in distinction by forgery is a serious issue. Thanks to the media that they interviewed her and exposed the matter for investigations. This prompted the police to launch an investigation in the alleged cheating case. Ruby had scored 444 out of 500 marks in the Arts stream and Saurabh Shreshtha 485 out of 500 in Science. Both studied in V.R. College in Vaishali district. Nowadays, examination scandals are lucrative business especially in Bihar. Last year also we have seen media footage that how Bihar students with the help of police cheat in examination.
Here in Mumbai police has detected engineering exam answer-sheet scam. The Mumbai police had arrested eight staff members of the Mumbai University in the case. The suspects were running the racket for the past few years and the modus operandi involved providing students their own answer-sheets after the exam in exchange of a huge sum of money. The students would then fill the answer-sheets at home and would return it to the suspects, who would then put them back in the stack of answer-sheets in the university. The accused were supplying the answer papers to students after the semester examinations. They would give the papers to the students and ask their friends to make more money. The suspects were charging anywhere between Rs. 15,000 to Rs 20,000 per answer-sheet from students. After paying the money, the students would complete, manipulate, cancel their answers written previously, and, at some instances, the answer-sheets were taken home by the students. Some students during their examination would just sign their attendance and leave the papers blank without writing a word and later write the papers. The answer-sheets had come from exam centres in Karjat, Kharghar, Airoli, Kamothe and Navi Mumbai.
On April 18th in Bengaluru, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) probing the question paper leak in Karnataka has unearthed some shocking details of how the scam has been in operation. It may be recalled that the Chemistry question paper of the II PU (equivalent to HSC) exam had been leaked twice, forcing the examinations to be postponed. During the probe, it has been found that Shivkumar, the main accused in the scam had sold question papers to 20 different private colleges for Rs. 20 lakh each. This is just a tip of the iceberg and he might have coordinated with more colleges across the state. Several private colleges and tutorials were raided following this scam. Some of the institutions have charged a capitation fee between Rs. 5 and Rs. 15 lakh. The assurance given to the parents is that the students need not worry about the PU exams and can focus only on the Common Entrance Test. The PU paper would be made available to the students a day in advance. The deposition by the 300 students suggests that they were given the question paper a day in advance and asked to by-heart all the answers. Shivakumar who is considered as a kingpin in this scam, become extremely difficult to track. He has been in the business since 2008. He did not deal with just PU question papers. Trails of him supplying question papers of MBBS, engineering, the KPSC and even Sub Inspector examinations have come to light. Shivakumar was a teacher in a college. He took voluntary retirement and has been in the business since then. He has been arrested several times, but lack of proper law against this crime; he was booked under theft and released within a few days.
Cases of irregularities in the pre-medical test were being reported in Madhya Pradesh since the 1990s, but it was not until 2009 that the severity of the crime came to light. The state government set up a committee to investigate into the matter and more than 100 people were arrested in 2011. However, it was in 2013 after the Indore police arrested 20 people who were impersonating the PMT candidates in 2009 that Jagdish Sagar’s name came to limelight. He is the leader of an organised racket involved in the scam. With subsequent interrogations, names of various politicians and bureaucrats, including the former education minister of the state Laxmikant Sharma were revealed. Till today, Vyapam scam remained unsolved.
There was another fake admission case which had busted in Delhi University. Four people were arrested on July 30, 2015 for facilitating admissions using fake documents. The accused told the police that they wisely selected the students who could not get into the university and created their fake documents for Rs. 3-7 lakhs. 25 fake admissions were reported in Bhagat Singh College, Aurobindo College, Dayal Singh College, Ram Lal Anand College, Hindu College, Kirori Mal College, and Kamla Nehru College.
These scams get exposed but never stops. There are many such organizations and people in education industry, who are making their perks out of such scams without getting traced.
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