‘10 years jail and ₹10 cr fine’: Rajasthan moves bill to curb exam paper leaks

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[google-translator]

JAIPUR: Rajasthan’s Ashok Gehlot government on Thursday sought to blunt the opposition attacks over the paper leak for the Rajasthan Eligibility Examination for Teachers (REET) paper leak, with a new law to demonstrate its commitment to penalise the culprits. In a bill tabled in the assembly on Thursday, the government proposed up to 10 years in jail and a fine of up to 10 crore for people convicted of leaking question papers of public recruitment examinations.

The proposed bill, ‘The Rajasthan Public Examination (Measures for Prevention of Unfair Means in Recruitment) Bill, 2022’, also introduces stiffer penalties for cheating and impersonation in recruitment examinations.

“The leakage 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. A fair and reasonable process of selection to posts, subject to the norm of equality of opportunity of the Constitution of India, is a constitutional requirement. A fair and reasonable recruitment process is a fundamental requirement of Article 14 as well,” the government said.

The government said the Rajasthan Public Examination (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, enacted in 1992 to curb unfair means in public examinations, was too mild. In the last 30 years, cheating in exams had become an organized crime and not just an individual act. Moreover, a quantum leap in the field of information and technology during the last decade has given rise to the use of new deceitful and unfair means to defeat the conduct of public examinations in a fair manner.

The 1992 law prescribed a maximum jail term of three years and a maximum fine of 2,000.

According to the bill introduced in the assembly, if any person takes unauthorized help in a public examination from any person or group or uses any gadget to cheat, the person can be sentenced to a maximum jail term of three years and a 1 lakh fine.

The punishment for impersonation, leaking the paper or solving the paper in an unauthorised manner will be anything between 5 and 10 years. The fine can range from 10 lakh to 10 crore.

An examinee convicted under the new law, irrespective of the punishment, will be debarred from applying for a public recruitment exam for two years.

The police will also have the power to seize any property believed to be proceeds of any offence.

If people from an Institution involved in the examination process are found guilty of any offence under the new law, they will be liable to pay all cost and expenditure related to the examination, determined by the designated court, and shall be banned forever.

All offences under the proposed law shall be cognizable, non-bailable, and non–compoundable.

The government has already announced an anti-cheating cell will be set up in the Special Operations Group (SOG) of Rajasthan Police to strengthen the entire investigation mechanism.


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