On same day as Centre, Assam introduces its own Bill to check paper leaks

The Bill proposed that the state government, in consultation with the Chief Justice of the Gauhati High Court, can designate and notify special courts that are not below a court of Additional District and Sessions Judge.

The Assam Cabinet had in October 2023 issued the Assam Public Examination (Measures for Prevention of Unfair Means in Recruitment) Ordinance. The Bill introduced on Monday also has the same name, and will come up for discussion later in the Assembly session.

The stated object of the Bill is “to provide effective measures to prevent and curb the offences of leakage of question papers and use of unfair means” in public examinations for recruitment to any state government post, including those in autonomous bodies, authorities, boards and corporations.

Along with cheating by using unauthorised help in a public examination, the definition of “unfair means” under the Bill includes leaking, or attempting to leak a question paper; procuring or attempting to procure a question paper in an unauthorised manner; selling a paper or solving one in an unauthorised manner; directly or indirectly assisting an examinee in an unauthorised manner; conducting an examination or printing a question paper or blank answer scripts somewhere other than designated areas.

For examinees indulging in unfair means, the Bill proposed a penalty of imprisonment up to three years and fine not less than Rs 1 lakh. For people, whether entrusted with conducting the exam or not, contravening the provisions of the law, the proposed penalty is imprisonment of at least five years, extending up to 10 years, and a fine of at least Rs 10 lakh that can extend up to Rs 1 crore. Additionally, it is proposed that an examinee convicted under the Bill will be debarred from writing any public exam for two years.

Additionally, the Bill proposes that in cases of persons in organised crime acting in contravention to it, the court can make an order to attach the property of the person to recover “any wrongful gains”. It also proposes that if a person from an institution or Limited Liability Partnership is found guilty of an offence under the law, the institution shall be liable to pay all the costs of the examination and will be banned forever.

In the last five years, Assam has seen two major recruitment scandals. In 2020, a recruitment exam to the posts of 597 sub-inspectors had to be cancelled because of a paper leak and senior and retired IPS officers were among those arrested. Then in 2021, more than two years after they had been conducted, the government announced that it would cancel the 2019 exams for recruitment to various posts in the Assam Power Distribution Company Limited after it was found that it had been riddled with irregularities.