Cheats lead to prison: India toughens penalties against information leaks about school exams
The Indian Government has implemented a law that toughens penalties against information leaks in school exams, a measure that the opposition considered “welcome” today, amid the cancellation of a test and demonstrations ions of students.
The Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act officially came into force on Friday, after being published in the Gazette of India by the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions.
The legislation punishes students who use unfair or fraudulent means during exams with three to five years in prison, while those who disclose the exams will be sentenced to between five and ten years in prison.
Despite having been approved by parliament on February 9, the Government has only now ratified the legislation, in the midst of the ongoing controversy in the Asian country over the leaks of information from several competitive exams that affected millions of candidates.
“This law was necessary, but it deals with information leaks after they have happened”, said today the general secretary of the opposition Congress Party (INC), Jairam Ramesh , on the social network X (formerly Twitter), highlighting that it is “damage control to deal with fraud”.
The opposition party organized around 200 demonstrations on Friday in several Indian cities to protest against the recent exam leaks, joining the protests held in recent weeks by the unions of students and by students.
The controversy began after the publication, on the 7th of this month, of the results of the university entrance exam for medical studies, known as NEET, for which 2.4 million people applied.
Organizations and students then drew attention to a series of suspicious points, such as the high number of people with a perfect score or the number of candidates who received extra points.
Although the Indian government initially appealed for calm, police in the state of Bihar, in the north of the country, said this week that the exam was publicized and that at least four students had access to the statement the day before the test.
However, the controversy over rigged exams does not end with NEET.
On Wednesday, the Indian Ministry of Education was forced to annul the results of a test used to recruit assistant professors and research staff at Indian universities, the UGC-NET, which was presented 940,000 candidates.
At the same time that the tightening of anti-fraud rules was announced, the Indian Government was forced on Friday to postpone the date of another competition, the CSIR-UGC-NET, specifically aimed at recruiting research personnel in the field of science.
The Government cited “unavoidable circumstances and logistical issues”, but the Indian Express newspaper described in detail the “marathon meetings” following allegations of information leaks that circulated in this third exam.
