Public Examination Bill 2024 To Curb Paper Leaks And Cheating In Entrance Examinations (Image: CLPR)
Union Minister Jitendra Singh introduced ‘The Public Examination (Prevention of Unfair Means) Bill, 2024’ to prevent use of unfair means in public examination. When passed the bill will help in curbing leaks and cheating in recruitment examinations and entrance tests such as UPSC, SSC, NEET, JEE and CUET.
The bill aims to bring transparency, fairness and credibility in the government examination system. It promotes the genuine efforts of youths by rewarding and protecting the entrance procedure for higher studies or employment.
The purpose of the bill is to stop organized crime groups and establishments from using unethical tactics to obtain financial advantage. But it shields candidates from its clauses. The provisions of the current unfair means policy of the exam conducting authority will apply to candidates.
To curb fraudulent activities in the examination the bill proposes a minimum of three to five years of imprisonment. Those involved in organised crimes will face 5-10 years of jail term and a minimum Rs 1 crore fine.
In the past, incidents of question paper leaks and organised cheating have adversely affected a large number of students. On many occasions, organised groups and exam mafia deploy solver gangs, impersonate candidates and get involve in paper leaks. The decision to impose strict punishment on cheating is primarily to deter such kinds of nefarious elements.
The section 3 of the bill lists 15 actions as unfair means in public examination including leakage of paper, taking possession of question paper, tempering with answer sheets, providing solution to one or more question by any unauthorised means, assisting candidates, tampering with documents, tampering with computer network, creation of fake website and fake admit card.
The bill comes in response to the cancellation of several competitive exams, including the Rajasthan teacher recruitment exam, the Gujarat junior clerk recruitment exam, the Rajasthan group-D recruitment exam, the Bihar constable recruitment exam, and the Common Eligibility Test (CET) for Group-D posts, Haryana. These tests were cancelled as a result of question paper leaks.
