Rajasthan Assembly passes Bill to curb paper leak, cheating

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.

A provision of attachment and confiscation of property has also been made in the Bill.

Replying to a debate in the Assembly, 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.

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

"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," Kataria said as tears rolled down his eyes.

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

If 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, the imprisonment will be from five to 10 years and fine from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 10 crore.

An examinee convicted under the provisions shall be debarred from taking any public examination for a period of two 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 anyone from the management or institution has been found guilty of the offence, then they shall be liable to pay all cost and expenditure related to the examination, determined by the designated court and shall be banned forever.

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

"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," a statement said.

"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," according to the statement of objectives and reasons.

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

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

"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," the statement said.

In February, the state government had cancelled the REET level-two examination, held in September 2021, due to paper leak.

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

The opposition BJP has been demanding a CBI probe into the REET paper leak case, which at present is being investigated by the Special Operation Group of the Rajasthan Police.