Patna HC takes govt to task over cheating during state board exams

The Patna high court on Friday asked the director general of police, Bihar, to immediately deploy adequate forces to ensure a check on unfair means at various examination centres in the state where the Bihar Secondary Education Board has been conducting matriculation exams.

The Patna high court on Friday asked the director general of police, Bihar, to immediately deploy adequate forces to ensure a check on unfair means at various examination centres in the state where the Bihar Secondary Education Board has been conducting matriculation exams.

Bihar-mass-cheating

The court took cognizance of a PIL filed on the basis of reports and photographs in HT, which showed hundreds of people around examination centres clambering onto rooftops using ropes to pass chits to candidates. The pictures were then taken up by TV news channels and have brought the state to ridicule and raised serious questions over the BSEB manner of functioning and arrangements made for a whopping 14.35 candidates taking the examinations across Bihar.

A division bench of chief justice L Narasimha Reddy and justice Vikash Jain also asked the state government to look into the affairs of invigilators and magistrates deputed at different examination centres to control cheating.

Senior advocate Basant Kumar Chaudhary mentioned the PIL before the division bench headed by the Chief Justice, terming it ‘a very serious case’ and worthy of the courts immediate attention.

Pointing to the ongoing anarchy in the board examination by way of a Hindustan Times, Patna report of March 20 captioned: “Matriculation farce unfolds again, board happy” and sub captioned as “Impossible to hold fair exam, says Shahi”, besides a photograph published in HT on March 19 under the heading “Window of Opportunity.”