Delhi police special investigation team arrested two teachers of a private school in outer Delhi and a teacher at a coaching centre in the same area on Sunday for allegedly leaking the Class XII economics paper, reports The Times of India.
Earlier, the Jharkhand police had detained at least six students and a coaching centre owner in Chatra, Jharkhand in connection with the Class X math paper leak. On Saturday, a new twist was added to the paper leak when reports claimed that it originated in Bihar.
Owners of the coaching centre involved in the alleged leak – Satish Pandey and Pankaj Singh – are members of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP).
This comes after top functionaries of the union human resources development ministry and the board on Thursday conceded that question papers of Class XII Biology and Accountancy could have been leaked as well.
“Reports of leakage of at least other two papers could have been true,” they admitted, reported The New Indian Express.
While the accountancy exam was scheduled on March 15, Biology was held on March 27- a day before the CBSE functionaries admitted the leak.
Background
On March 26, Class XII CBSE students were left appalled following the rumours of economics paper being circulated through social media and WhatsApp hours before the examination.
However, denying the claims earlier, CBSE told the media, “We have checked with all examination centres and the paper was not leaked.”
The CBSE had on Wednesday ordered a retest for Class XII Economics on April 25, while the decision over Class X maths re-exam would be taken in the next 15 days, as the leak for the latter was in Delhi and Haryana only, not pan-India.
Investigation
FIR revealed that the CBSE had received an e-mail on March 28 at 1:29 am with 12 images of the CBSE 10 mathematics paper, but the CBSE completely ignored it.
Initially, the paper was sold for Rs 35,000 but later dropped down to Rs 5,000.
Reportedly, CBSE informed Delhi Police about a complaint it had received through fax on March 23 naming a person from Rajinder Nagar who ran a coaching institute and was responsible for the leak.
The complaint also named two schools from the same vicinity to allegedly involved in the leak.
HRD minister response
According to NDTV, HRD minister Prakash Javadekar announced, “The government will now work on a robust system to make paper leaks impossible in the future. Nobody has the right to play with the lives of children”,
Students’ response
The decision was not well taken by the students who took to Twitter and to other social media websites to show their anger.
In fact, many students protested near Jantar Mantar on Thursday, raising slogans, “We want justice. Either there should be re-examination for all subjects or none. ”
Students protesting outside CBSE headquarters alleged that “although the CBSE has admitted that two paper was leaked, they had proof that several other papers were also doing rounds on Whatsapp before the start of the examination.”
Students told Business Standard, “We have to put on hold several travel plans as well as delay the preparation for several competitive examinations which were scheduled to start preparing for.”
The CBSE conducts 24 exams annually for 120 million (1.2 crores) students and for this year, 16,38,428 students registered for Class X and 11,86,306 for the Class XII board examinations.
