10-Year Jail, 1-Crore Fine: Bihar Passes Bill To Curb Paper Leaks
NDTV
While passing its order on Tuesday in which it said there would be no retest for NEET-UG, the Supreme Court bench had also noted that the paper for the exam had been leaked for at least two centres, in Bihar's Patna and Hazaribagh in Jharkhand.
Bihar, one of the epicentres of several paper leaks, including that of the NEET-UG test, has passed a stringent bill to curb malpractices in government exams.
The Bihar Public Examinations (PE) (Prevention of Unfair Means) Bill, 2024, was tabled by state Parliamentary Affairs Minister Vijay Kumar Chaudhary on Wednesday and passed with a voice vote amid a walkout by the opposition. The walkout was to protest lawlessness and the denial of special status to Bihar.
The Bill, which had first been introduced in the monsoon session, has strict provisions, including a prison term of up to 10 years and a fine of Rs 1 crore for those found guilty of involvement in irregularities in exams for both individuals and organisations. It also has a clause for attaching the properties of those found guilty and makes it difficult for people arrested for exam irregularities to get bail.
