The Bill is meant to tackle the widespread malaise of exam leaks and imposes a 10-year-jail term and a fine up to Rs 1 crore. But will this curb the malpractice in a country where there are so few jobs?
The Lok Sabha recently passed the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Bill, 2024, aimed at curbing exam leaks and organised malpractices in recruitment examinations. These include those conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), the Staff Selection Commission (SSC), Railway Recruitment Board, National Testing Agency, Institute of Banking Personnel Selection, and Departments of the Union government and their attached offices. It also includes exams such as NEET, JEE and CUET. The Bill has provision of a 10-year jail term and a fine up to Rs 1 crore for those found guilty.
Replying to an extensive debate on the Bill, Union minister Dr Jitendra Singh said that the legislation aims at safeguarding merit among the youth and the well-being of children. “Be it appointment of the youth in government jobs or admission in higher educational institutions, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government has made significant strides for empowering the youth of this country,” he said. The Bill looks to ensure a “level-playing field” for youth, irrespective of their class or financial status.
The rationale for bringing this Bill, he said, was that it specifically addressed issues related to unfair means in the conduct of exams that are not covered under the purview of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita Act. The Bill comes as the issue of paper leaks in government recruitment examinations have dominated state polls in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Telangana.
So rampant has this menace been that The Indian Express which investigated 41 documented instances of leaks over the last five years across 15 states shockingly found that they affected as many as 1.4 crore applicants who were vying for a little over 1.04 lakh posts.
Singh said that one after the other, there had been incidents of malpractices, paper leaks, impersonation, etc., from various parts of the country. In Rajasthan, there have been 12 incidents of malpractices since 2018, while the sub-inspector recruitment scam surfaced in Jammu & Kashmir in March, 2022 and SSC Combined Graduate Exam in 2017, he said.
“There are several instances, but prominently in West Bengal, the Diploma in Elementary Education paper in November, 2022 was leaked. Again in the same state in February 2023, the English paper leaked, besides the School Service Commission paper. In December 2022, the teacher recruitment scam unravelled in Rajasthan, while in February 2022, the Rajasthan Eligibility Exam for Teachers was also plagued by malpractices and the exam had to re-conducted. In May 2022, the Rajasthan Police Constable Recruitment Exam was hit by a scam,” he said.
“The future of our youth up to 40 years of age, who comprise 70% of our population, is at stake, as they are stakeholders in the Viksit Bharat of 2047,” he said. However, he said that students or the candidates appearing in these examinations had been kept out of the purview of the Bill and assured that they would continue to be governed as per provisions of the agencies conducting the exams.
Singh added that for the first time, all exams held by the UPSC and SSC are now being conducted in 13 regional languages and efforts are on to conduct them in all regional 22 scheduled languages. As technology was being widely used by unscrupulous elements, he said technological solutions will be used to tackle the menace and a surveillance committee will be constituted to address those concerns.
Concern over exam leaks in various states has spilled over into the political arena too. In Rajasthan, the BJP had accused the then-Congress government of not acting on paper leaks and alleged that senior party functionaries were involved. In Telangana, the Congress had accused the then-BRS government of leaks in exams conducted by the state’s Public Service Commission.
The Bill specifies unfair means as including unauthorised access to or leakage of a question paper or answer key, assisting a candidate during a public examination, tampering with a computer network or resources, documents for the shortlisting or finalising of merit lists or ranks, conducting a fake examination and issuing fake admit cards or offer letters to cheat for monetary gain. It also prohibits disclosing exam-related confidential information before time and unauthorised people entering exam centres. These offences will be punishable with imprisonment between three and five years, as well as a fine up to Rs 10 lakh.
The Bill also provides that an offence by a service provider (an organisation that provides computer resources or any other support to a public examination authority) will be punishable with a fine of up to Rs 1 crore. It also provides that in cases of organised crime related to public examinations, punishment will include imprisonment between five and 10 years, and a fine of at least Rs 1 crore. All offences under the Bill will be cognisable, non-bailable and non-compoundable.
Congress MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said that the Bill has “penal measures but does not include preventive measures”. He also said that the Bill gives “significant authority” to the Union government, “thus consolidating considerable control of investigation at [its] hands”, and that it can easily be assumed that “all kinds of opposition will be throttled with this kind of legislation”. Addressing these concerns, Singh said: “Punishment itself is a deterrent and a preventive measure. This is the first step for prevention. If we don’t take even this first step, we will not be doing anything at all.” He denied that the legislation attempts to “centralise the system” in any form.
Nationalist Congress Party MP Supriya Sule, while supporting the Bill, said that the Union government should clarify its plans to tackle the “delay and cancellation” of examinations and the enforcement of a timeline for conducting substitute exams.
Without stringent measures to tackle exam leaks, the future of youth will be in dire straits.
—By Abhilash Kumar Singh and India Legal Bureau