Teacher arrested for ‘leaking’ CBSE economics paper also revealed maths paper
One of the accused in the case of the CBSE Class 12 economics paper leak has been found to be behind the Class 10 mathematics paper leak, according to the police.
A private school teacher, who was arrested from Una in Himachal Pradesh last week for leaking the Central Board of Secondary Education’s Class 12 board exam’s economics paper, also leaked the Class 10 mathematics paper, Delhi Police said on Thursday.
Rakesh Kumar, a commerce teacher at DAV Centenary School in Una and superintendent of an examination centre in the area, was arrested on April 7 for photographing and circulating the economics paper on WhatsApp. Two other employees of the school, clerk Amit Sharma and peon Ashok Kumar, were also arrested.
The police on Thursday also arrested Rakesh Kumar’s sister-in-law for allegedly conspiring with him. Two bank employees were also arrested by the police for negligence that aided the leak. Joint commissioner of police (crime) Alok Kumar said the arrested woman’s son was appearing for the Class 12 exam and she had relatives whose children were in Class 10. She had allegedly told Rakesh Kumar that she could help him become the principal of his school using her political connections, Alok Kumar said.
“When we interrogated Rakesh Kumar at length, he admitted that along with the Class 12 paper he had also leaked the Class 10 question paper on March 23,” said Alok Kumar. The economics exam was held on March 26 and the mathematics exam on March 28.
The police said Rakesh Kumar had earlier told them that when he went to collect the question papers of computer science and informatics practices from a Union Bank of India branch in Una on March 23, he picked up a packet of economics papers. Alok Kumar said the police suspected his role in the second paper leak as well, given the similarities in the leaks.
“He later admitted to have picked up a Class 10 mathematics paper bundle too. While he gave the bundle of class 12 economics papers to Amit and Ashok, he kept the packet of mathematics papers with himself in a bag. Later, he opened the seal carefully and took out one question paper,” the joint commissioner said.
According to the police, after taking photographs of the mathematics paper on his mobile, Rakesh kept it back inside the cover and resealed it. He then allegedly called one of his students, who was also a friend’s son, to his residence and made him write down all the questions. He allegedly called another student to copy the economics paper in the same way.
Police said he himself clicked pictures of the question paper copied in longhand and sent them to the woman arrested in Punjab. The woman in turn allegedly sent the paper to one of her relatives, after which they were shared multiple times on WhatsApp groups.
Rakesh Kumar had been working at the school for the past nine years. He allegedly told the police that he carried out the leak not for any monetary benefit but to help his career prospects.
“He told us that a teacher is eligible to become a principal only after working for ten years. The woman had promised Rakesh that she has some political connections and would use her clout to make him the principal. Rakesh also wanted to help two students known to him,” said the joint commissioner.
On the arrests of Sheru Ram and Om Prakash, who are respectively the branch manager and head cashier of Union Bank of India, from where the papers were taken, Kumar said that while they were not a part of the conspiracy, but violated CBSE guidelines by giving access to the papers to Rakesh Kumar alone, which amounted to criminal negligence.
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