The Punjab and Haryana high court on Thursday directed the secretary of the Punjab School Education Board (PSEB) to take appropriate action on the report submitted by retired judge OP Garg against indicted persons involved in tampering with answer sheets in the Class-12 examination held in March 2013.
The directions came from the division bench comprising acting chief justice Ashutosh Mohunta and justice HS Sidhu on a petition filed by Joginder Nath, whose son was an affected candidate in the examination.
In his report, the inquiry officer had indicted three employees, namely Vinod Kumar Rawal (social studies master), Bikramjit Bhanot (director, physical education) and Dharampal Singh (work attendant) of government senior secondary school (boys), Samrala, in Ludhiana district. Though the inquiry officer had submitted the report in December last year, the PSEB secretary had failed to take any action against these indicted employees due to their influence enjoyed in political circles, the petitioner had alleged.
The court was informed that during the Class-12 examination in the Samrala school in March 2013, the indicted school officials had indulged in unfair means as they were unauthorisedly sitting in the examination hall and had been involved in objectionable activities. The petitioner submitted that two meritorious students who appeared in the said examination were awarded zero marks in chemistry, and 12 and nine marks, respectively, in biology.
However, after scrutiny of their answer sheets, it was detected that these were tampered with and written pages of their answer sheets were substituted with plain pages, with cross (X) marks on those pages.
The petitioner's son, Rajesh Kumar, had later got 72% marks in the examination.
However, after scrutiny of their answer sheets, it was detected that these were tampered with and written pages of their answer sheets were substituted with plain pages, with cross (X) marks on those pages.
The petitioner's son, Rajesh Kumar, had later got 72% marks in the examination.