New Delhi: The National testing Agency (NTA) has said that reports of a leak of the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test undergraduate question paper are false and that a paper in a wrong language was given to students at one exam centre.
The tests were conducted across 571 cities in the country and abroad on May 5. Several posts on social media claimed that the paper had been leaked beforehand.
Indian Express quoted a senior NTA official as having said that there were no leaks and that there was simply an error of a wrong question paper being given in Rajasthan. He, however, said that students walked out of the hall with the wrong paper they had been given.
“The instances of ‘paper leak’ being claimed are completely false… In an isolated incident at Girls Higher Secondary Adarsh Vidya Mandir, students were given English medium question paper by mistake and by the time the invigilator could correct the mistake, the students forcefully walked out of the exam hall with the question paper,” a senior NTA official said.
The Girls Higher Secondary Adarsh Vidya Mandir is at Sawai Madhopur. The rules have it that students aren’t allowed to exit the hall with the paper during the exam. The official told Express that the paper was circulated after the walkout, at around 4 pm, by when the exam had already started.
The test began at 2 pm and ended at 5.20 pm, Careers 360 News reported. Over 24 lakh students appeared this time.
In Bihar’s Patna, police filed a first information report after receiving information of a paper leak around three hours before the exam began. The Patna Senior Superintendent of Police Rajiv Mishra told Times of India that no arrests have been made but that police have interrogated aspirants after they took the test and questioned people who were allegedly involved.
The FIR was lodged under Sections 407, 408 (criminal breach of trust) and 120 B (punishment of criminal conspiracy of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the TOI report said.
Alleged paper leaks and irregularities have scarred thousands recently. Earlier this year the Uttar Pradesh government cancelled the state police constable recruitment examination after widespread complaints of question paper leak and other irregularities.
