Harsimrat urges Home Minister to order probe into Punjab exam leaks

New Delhi, July 29 (IANS) Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) MP, Harsimrat Badal, on Wednesday urged Union Home Minister Amit Shah to order a probe into the 11 cases of examination paper leaks in Punjab to unmask the multi-crore scam and ensure justice to five lakh students who had been wronged by the repeated paper leaks.

In a statement, she said the Punjab government did not have any interest in probing the paper leaks as this could result in indicting their own ministers.

“It is therefore absolutely necessary to punish the perpetrators of this crime as they have played with the future of an entire generation,” she said.

Harsimrat Badal claimed that Punjabis were perturbed that the AAP government did not have any intention to fix accountability for the paper leaks.

“Even though serious lapses have been found in the functioning of the Education Department which conducted the papers, the Health Department which conducted the Pharmacy Officers paper and a nodal paper conducting authority — the Punjab Subordinate Services Selection Board — no action has been taken against those at their helm.

“Neither have Education Minister Harjot Bains and Health Minister Balbir Singh been sacked nor has the Chief Minister owned moral responsibility as the minister incharge of the Subordinate Services Selection Board.”

The Akali leader said with the very sanctity of the examination system being eroded people had lost faith in the ability of the AAP government to conduct recruitment examinations.

She said the paper leaks and irregularities had also reached the High Court which had also stepped in to stay the recruitment process in some cases, including the Excise Inspectors examination.

She informed the Home Minister that instead of taking strict action in the paper leak cases, the AAP government had initiated a cover-up exercise and was asserting that no paper leak had occurred in the state.

“This despite Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann tweeting on March 13, 2023, and announcing that the Punjab State Teacher Eligibility Test (PSTET) paper had been leaked. Recently the government has admitted there were grave irregularities in the conduct of the Pharmacy Officers examination in which an organised mafia took Rs 13 lakh each from unscrupulous persons and used Bluetooth devices to dictate the paper to them but refused to admit that the paper was leaked.

“The truth is that even this paper was leaked from inside examination centres by posting pliable staff as part of a plan to subvert the entire examination in favour of chosen candidates,” she claimed.

The lawmaker said there had been 11 major paper leak cases in the last four years. She said there were instances where irregularities had been detected in the examinations, including students passing the examination in large numbers from particular centres besides bungling in awarding interview marks.

The major cases include the Naib Tehsildar paper leak affecting 42,000 students, the TET paper leak affecting one lakh students, the PSEB Class XII English paper affecting 2.5 lakh students, the Agriculture Development Officers paper affecting 4,100 students and the PSSSB Group B Officers paper affecting one lakh students, she added.

–IANS

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