Ghaziabad District Magistrate S V S Rangarao was Tuesday transferred — two days after the Combined Pre-Medical Test (CPMT-2014) was cancelled on suspicion of paper leak.
The cancellation affected 1,09,295 students who were to appear for the examination at 213 centres in 15 districts of the state.
The DM, who had inspected the two boxes of question papers kept in separate banks in Ghaziabad, had declared they had been tampered with.
The officials of King George Medical University (KGMU), Lucknow, which conducts the examination, are blaming the DM for confirming the tampering without establishing the paper leak.
Rangarao has been sent to Agriculture Production Commissioner as special secretary. He was unavailable for comments.
After one of the boxes at Allahabad Bank was found damaged in Ghaziabad, KGMU had instructed officials to retrieve the question papers kept at the State Bank of India.
“There were enough officials at the second bank: police, bank officials, KGMU officials, and the DM himself; so we requested the DM to open the boxes. If any tampering had also been found with the papers inside the box, it would have been another matter. But before an actual ‘paper-leak’ could be established, the DM declined to open the boxes and cited the outer damage as reason enough for suspicion,” said a senior KGMU official.
“So we were left with no choice but to cancel the examination,” the official added.
On Monday, a Special Task Force (STF) opened the boxes and found all the papers “intact” and “untouched” inside the box.
“The numbered booklets are kept in specially imported envelopes which are sealed and covered in shrink films. So it is impossible to open the envelope without us knowing it,” the official said.
“Had the DM opened the box, it would have at least established that there was no actual leak and maybe the exam would have also happened,” the official added.
SSP STF Amit Pathak said they are yet to establish if the damage was accidental or intentional.
The boxes with CPMT question papers being inspected. (file)
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