Fine of Rs 10 crore, life term: What is Uttarakhand’s new anti-cheating law

The protest by the Uttarakhand Berozgaar Union had seen stones being hurled and the police resorting to lathi-charge on the protesters. Dhami met representatives of the Union, assuring them of his government’s commitment to conduct “unbiased, cheating-free and transparent exams”.

Provisions of the anti-cheating law

The ordinance said that the main aim behind the law was to prevent offences related to obstructing the sanctity of examinations, use of unfair means, leakage of question papers, and other irregularities. It covers public examinations for recruitment to posts under the state government, autonomous bodies run by the government, and authorities, corporations, and institutions operated with grants of the state government.

According to the ordinance, if any examinee is caught cheating or causing another examinee to cheat in a competitive examination (online and offline) or to have indulged in unfair means, he shall be punishable with imprisonment for three years and with a minimum fine of Rs 5 lakh. If the fine is not paid, the examinee shall be jailed for another nine months.

A second-time offender will be punishable with a minimum jail term of 10 years and fine of Rs 10 lakh. In default of payment of fine, he will be jailed for another 30 months.

If any person, printing press, service provider contracted or ordered for examination, management for conducting an examination, or any person and organisation authorised to keep and transport the examination material, any employee of the examination authority, limited liability partnership, coaching centre or any other institution has indulged in conspiracy or other unfair means, they shall be punished with a jail term of not less than 10 years, which may extend to life imprisonment. They will also be punished with a minimum fine of Rs 1 crore, which can go up to Rs 10 crore. If they can’t pay the fine, the convicts will serve another jail term of three years.

Also, an applicant found cheating will be debarred for two to five years from the date of the chargesheet, and in case of conviction, from all competitive exams for 10 years. All the properties earned using unfair means will be seized. The offences are cognizable, non-bailable and non-compoundable.

Earlier, Uttarakhand BJP media in-charge Manveer Chauhan had said that the law was in the works from last year, after allegations of irregularities in the Uttarakhand Subordinate Services Selection Commission (UKSSSC) exams.

“It [the ordinance] was supposed to be brought in a cabinet meeting on Friday, but the meeting was postponed to February 15. However, the protest happened and we decided to bring the law a few days earlier,” Chauhan said.

Recent scams in exams

For the past few days, there have been continuous agitations against multiple paper leaks in Uttarakhand since 2016.

For instance, irregularities were found in the 2016 village panchayat development officer exam. The recent Uttarakhand Public Service Commission (UKPSC) exam was cancelled after it turned out that exam papers had been leaked and sold to candidates.

The biggest in the list is the case pertaining to a written exam conducted by the UKSSSC on December 4 and 5 in 2021, in which around 1.6 lakh candidates appeared and 916 were selected for different departments. After the results were announced, student organisations alleged that question papers were sold to the examinees before the test.

The latest trigger for the protests was the UKPSC patwari and accountant exam, held in January, in which 1.4 lakh candidates appeared for 563 vacancies. The exam was subsequently cancelled, and was conducted again on Sunday.

UP’s anti-cheating law of 1992

In the late 1980s and early 90s, public examinations in Uttar Pradesh (from which Uttarakhand was carved out in 2000) frequently witnessed allegations of cheating, involving officials, teachers, students and even local gangsters.

In 1991, then Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh appointed Rajnath Singh as the education minister. Both leaders planned to establish a system to curb cheating. Next year, in 1992, the Kalyan Singh government promulgated a stringent anti-cheating Act. The law aimed to end the practice of mass copying in school and university examinations, and contained a provision that any student found copying would be handcuffed and sent to jail.

The Act made the use of unfair means in exams a non-bailable cognizable offence and allowed the police to enter examination centres to conduct checks and arrest the offenders.

During the UP-Board examinations of 1992, newspapers in the state published pictures of handcuffed students caught cheating in the exams, causing an uproar. Due to the strict implementation of the law, around 17 per cent of the students left the examination midway. As a result, only 14.70 per cent of intermediate and 30.30 per cent of high school candidates passed the board exams. The Mulayam Singh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party (SP) made this an election issue.

In the 1993 elections, the SP came to power in alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party, and scrapped the anti-copying ordinance within hours of taking oath. The government also implemented the ‘self-centre’ rule, allowing schools and colleges to become examination centres for their own students.

Rajesh Tiwari, Vice-Principal at the Government Inter College in Ayodhya (Uttar Pradesh), said there was an increase in cases of cheating and unfair means after this, though the pass percentage in government exams improved.

In 1997, with the return of the BJP and Kalyan Singh as the CM, the government reintroduced the Anti-Copying Act, but with the change that the offence was made bailable.