Why is it not stopping despite India’s strict rules against cheating in important government exams?
India’s parliament has passed a new stringent law to prevent cheating, cheating, cheating and forgery in government jobs and government college entrance exams.
Parliament on Tuesday passed the Public Examination (Prevention of Unfair Men) Act, 2024, a law to prevent the use of unfair means in government examinations. Under this, there is a provision of three to 10 years in jail for those who cheat or facilitate examinations.
It also calls for a fine between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 1 crore.
The new law does not directly impose penalties on test takers. Instead, their convictions will be determined by laws framed by their respective testing authorities.
The law will apply to most examinations conducted by the federal government and its investigative agencies. All offences are non-bailable and will be investigated by senior police officers.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government has said that the Act will establish “greater transparency, fairness and credibility” as it is the first law to be brought at the federal level to check corruption in examinations.
But critics say harsh punishment alone will not effectively solve the problem because cheating or replacing others with exams are already punishable offences.
“The new law could prove to be ineffective as coaching centres collude with students so that they can clear entrance exams,” says Ghanta Chakrapani, former chairman of a government organisation that recruits people for state government jobs. ‘
In 2022, India’s top investigative agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), arrested a Russian hacker for allegedly rigging the entrance exam for admission to india’s premier educational institution, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). The hacker allegedly worked for a coaching institute.
Cheating and cheating are prevalent in India due to the highly competitive nature of government jobs and entrance tests of higher colleges. Millions of people here compete for limited vacancies.
More than a million people had applied for only 1,000 civil services jobs in the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), the country’s highest government job exam. Similarly, the best engineering colleges, including IITs, have a Common Entrance Examination (JEE) for admission. For this, more than one million students appear for the examinations every year, while there are only about 15,000 seats in these educational institutions.
Several states have enacted laws to prevent exam manipulation. Rajasthan enacted an anti-fraud law two years ago, while the southern state of Andhra Pradesh and the northern state of Uttar Pradesh have had such laws since 1998 and 1997, respectively. Last year, Gujarat and Uttarakhand also introduced laws to check cheating and cheating in exams.
Despite the existence of these laws, cases of forgery and fraud continue in each of these states. In such a situation, the law introduced by parliament at the central level shows limited effect.
In India, questions or papers of examination are also reported from time to time and due to this, examinations are canceled. An investigation by The Indian Express has revealed 41 documented cases of question papers being leaked for job recruitment exams in 15 states in the last five years.
Despite all this, says Jacob Pinnows, a former top police officer, “excessive quantum of punishment may not be a complete solution to the scourge of fraud.” ‘
Mr. Pinnows says fraud can be prevented by tightening security at exam centers. “It is possible to use digital surveillance technology on a large scale to prevent fraud by monitoring only students taking the exam. ‘
However, there is an emerging trend among young candidates in India who use innovative and mischievous methods of cheating and copying using digital technology.
In Rajasthan, some people used slippers with Bluetooth devices embedded in the exam hall, while their colleagues outside were ready to share the test answers. Recently, 30 candidates were arrested in Tamil Nadu for using Bluetooth earphones to cheat in the Indian Customs Service exam.
Experts say that so far laws targeting fraud have proved ineffective. One reason for this is the influential links of ‘organised criminals’ who disrupt exams. Those who facilitate fraud or copying often have political connections.
Karnataka, for example, investigated the police recruitment exam last year after a governing party leader was accused of facilitating large-scale cheating at an examination centre, resulting in over 65 arrests.
Disputes over the results of government job exams in India can continue for years. Two years ago, violent protests broke out over alleged errors in the railway recruitment test results and resulted in the suspension of the exam. Around 700,000 candidates were shortlisted for only 35,200 posts for the railways recruitment exam.
“The new law doesn’t make fraud difficult,” says Mr Chakrapani. It only talks about severe punishment for those caught. ‘