BCom paper leak in Gujarat: Bhavnagar college’s principal in-charge, 2 students arrested

“We formally arrested the three at 6 pm on Tuesday after their reports for Covid-19 tests returned negative. We shall produce them before a magistrate later on Wednesday,” P D Parma, Police Inspector of the Neelam Bagu police station, said.

The FIR, registered on the basis of a complaint filed by MKBU registrar Kaushik Bhatt, also names Srushti Borda, a student of GLKCCM, as an accused. The four accused have been booked under Indian Penal Code (IPC) Sections 406, 409, 120B, 114, and 34 and Information Technology Act’s sections 72 and 72A for criminal breach of trust, criminal breach of trust by a public servant, criminal conspiracy, breach of confidentiality and privacy, disclosure of information in breach of lawful contract etc.

According to the FIR, Galani illegally tore open a packet of question papers of Finance Account XII (Management Accounting II) for semester VI of the BCom course hours before the exam conducted by MKBU was to begin at 3.30 pm on Saturday. He then clicked photos of the question paper on his mobile phone and handed his phone over to Borda, a BCom student who was residing in the college of GLKCCM. Borda, in turn, asked Makwana to click photos of the question papers from Galani’s phone.

“The investigation, so far, has revealed that Borda wanted to send a copy of the question paper to her friend Ladumore. But as she didn’t have a phone of her own, he asked Makwana, a student of the same college who was around that time, to do it on her behalf,” Parmar said.

However, Parmar said, Makwana didn’t have Ladumore’s contact number. “Therefore, he shared photos of the question paper he had clicked from the principal’s phone to his friends Yashpalsinh Gohil and Rahul Dangar so that they would eventually reach Ladumor. However, in the process, the paper started circulating on social media,” he added.

Around 2700 students studying in the sixth and last semester of MKBU’s BCom course had registered for the exam. On Sunday evening, Yuvrajsinh Jadeja, a leader of the Aam Aadmi Party (APP) had alleged the paper had been leaked and had shared snaps of the question paper on his Twitter page.

#MKBU (મહારાજા કૃષ્ણકુમારસિંહજી ભાવનગર યુનિ.) ની પરીક્ષા હતી જેમાં FINANCE & ACCOUNTS-XII(MANEGEMENT ACCOUNTING-||) નું પેપર હતું.

સમય -૩:૩૦ થી ૬:૦૦

જાગૃત વિદ્યાર્થી દ્વારા મળતી માહિતી પ્રમાણે પેપર શરૂ થયા #અગાઉ પેપર વિવિધ વોટ્સ એપ નંબરો ઉપર વાઇરલ હતું.

વોટ્સ એપ ઉપર જે વાઇરલ pic.twitter.com/UIt0FzR10K

— Yuvrajsinh Jadeja (@YAJadeja) April 2, 2023

MKBU Registrar Bhatt said that with an aim to prevent the leak of question papers, the varsity had in 2011 adopted the system of e-mailing password-protected soft copies of question papers to examination centres minutes before the scheduled time of examination. But the question paper for Finance Account XII (Management Accounting II) subject was an exception.

“The question paper ran into six to seven pages. Thus being a lengthy question paper, it was not possible for colleges recognised as examination centres to print it in time if we were to e-mail them its password-protected soft copies. Therefore, we had got the question papers printed at a security press and then handed sealed packets of these question papers to respective examination centres,” Bhatt told The Indian Express.

“The examination centres were obliged to keep the sealed packets in strong rooms having CCTV camera surveillance. But Galani didn’t do it and instead took question papers in his chamber which didn’t have CCTV surveillance.”

The registrar added that they are waiting for the police to ascertain the extent of the leak. “For now, we have not declared the examination conducted on April 1 as null and void as we don’t know the extent of the leak. We are waiting for the police investigation to ascertain the extent of the leak and the executive council of MKBU will take an appropriate decision in this regard once this information is available.”