10-year jail, Rs 1-crore fine: Bihar passes Bill to curb paper leak

Aksheev Thakur

New Delhi, July 24

The Bihar Legislature on Wednesday passed the Bihar Public Examination (Prevention of Unfair Means) Bill, 2024, to curb paper leaks in the state. The Bill lays down the provision for three to 10 years of imprisonment with a fine of Rs 10 lakh that can go up to Rs 1 crore.

If a government entity or a private agency engages in malpractice, it will face a Rs 1 crore fine and a four-year suspension of services. The accused service provider will also be made to provide a portion of the total cost of conducting the examination.

WB passes resolution against NEET

• The West Bengal Government on Wednesday passed a resolution to scrap the NEET-UG exam and reinstate the Joint Entrance Examination
• The development comes a day after the Supreme Court refused to order the retest of controversy-ridden exam
• On Tuesday, Karnataka had passed a resolution to scrap NEET-UG. Last month, the DMK had also passed a similar resolution

Past examination scandals

• 2023: Constable recruitment paper leak
• 2017: Bihar SSC exam paper leak
• 2016: Bihar School Examination Board scam
• 2014: Mass cheating in Class XII board exams

The Bill was presented in the Bihar Legislative Assembly on Tuesday, and passed by the Upper House in the Bihar Legislature today. The Opposition staged a walkout over the Bihar Government’s inability to stop “solver gangs” involved in the paper leaks over the last two decades.

The move comes in the backdrop of multiple instances of paper leaks in state-level constable and teacher exams. Recently, the trail of NEET-UG paper leak was also traced to Bihar. Over 13 people suspected to be involved in the NEET-UG paper leak were arrested from Bihar.

The Economic Offences Unit (EOU) of Bihar Police, that was investigating the NEET-UG paper leak case, discovered that medical aspirants had paid sums ranging from Rs 30 lakh to Rs 50 lakh each, to obtain question papers.

Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Arunachal and Rajasthan have passed similar Bills recently. Under the new law, all offences will be cognisable and non-bailable. In February 2024, the Centre had passed the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024, to curb malpractices in public examinations.

Government officials said that since Nalanda, which is the home turf of Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, was the epicentre of the leak, the government was left red-faced after the arrests.

“There was a series of paper leaks in the state but the NEET-UG leak embarrassed the government. Most of the arrested accused were from Bihar. We were in the media only for the bad news. Finally, a concrete step has been taken,” a senior official from the Bihar Education Department told The Tribune.

The Bihar Public Service Commission Mains examination in 2022 was postponed because of an alleged paper leak. The constable examination in the same year was also cancelled after it had been leaked.