Pat-down before toilet break, jammers inside: Rocked by paper leak, Uttarakhand goes back to drawing board

The test was to select candidates to fill 45 vacancies, with at least 10,000 aspirants vying for the jobs, open to graduates of Economics, Commerce or Agriculture from a recognised university. In an order dated October 1, the commission announced the decision to reschedule the exam.

Apprehensions and concerns first arose after three pages of a question paper from a Haridwar centre allegedly leaked during the graduate-level examination on September 21. Aspirants protested for a week before Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami promised a CBI probe in the matter. Two accused, a candidate and his sister, were arrested. The candidate had allegedly smuggled an iPhone into the centre and sent the photos to his sister, who got it solved and sent it back.

For the October 5 exam, nine schools from Haldwani and seven from Dehradun were chosen. However, the commission has decided to start from the drawing board by prioritising government-run institutions to hinder the movement and intervention of external entities, Martolia said.

“We will prefer government schools and colleges, and will audit their premises to assess how fortified and secure they are. If government schools fall short, we will look for aided institutions. Private schools will be our last resort. We will install biometric identification at the entrance to the exam centre to allow candidates, invigilators, and observers. This will hinder the unnecessary movement of other staff without permission. The candidates will be frisked before they enter classrooms,” he said.

The centre will also witness a mock drill of this equipment a day before the exam. “Premises and grounds will be combed a day before the exam, and a police officer will be stationed round the clock. On the morning of the test, we will deploy officers to scour the halls,” the chairperson said.

The commission has also conducted a meeting with the Electronics Corporation of India Ltd (ECIL), a public sector enterprise under the Department of Atomic Energy, based in Hyderabad. The commission has sought assistance with jammers to block transmission of 5G signals. “We have sought efficient technology from the ECIL and will consult them again for the next round of discussion,” Martolia said. This time, jammers will be installed in the washrooms at the examination centres, and the candidates using the washrooms will be subjected to a search before leaving and after returning, he said.

Khalid Malik, the main accused in the paper leak case, had said that he hid his mobile phone at a centre a day before the test, and the photos were sent from the washroom.

Uttarakhand Berozgar Sangh president Ram Kandwal questioned why these measures had taken so long to manifest. “Does this mean the commission has been falling short so far, and the September 21 exam was riddled with faults? The October 5 test was cancelled three days prior, and this demonstrates that they have been unprepared for the last exam. These changes are also part of the optics they want to exhibit,” he said. Kandwal said that the exam should be conducted soon after they are notified. “There is a failure at the systemic level, and they know the rot is so deep that they have to conduct an overhaul,” he said.

The Berozgar Sangh had called a protest after the leak, claiming that the optical mark recognition answer sheets had been tampered with. Incidentally, the man accused of leaking the same exam paper in 2021, Hakam Singh, a former BJP leader, was arrested a day before the September 21 exam. He had allegedly demanded Rs 15 lakh from candidates for helping them pass.

Dehradun is home to hundreds of coaching centres where students from across the state spend years preparing for recruitment tests. The September 21 exam for the posts of patwari, lekhpal, village development officer, and six others for graduate-level aspirants had 416 vacancies. In Dehradun alone, over 40,000 candidates showed up at 121 centres.

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