The Centre today accused the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government of failing to establish a national examination body despite being aware of the need, and held the Congress responsible for policy inaction prior to 2014.
The Congress hit back, asserting that the current exam paper leak crisis was the responsibility of the present government.
The verbal exchange intensified sharply after Union Minister Jitendra Singh introduced the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Amendment Bill in the Rajya Sabha. The Bill was passed by a voice vote in the Lok Sabha yesterday following a detailed discussion.
Singh strongly criticised the Congress, stating that the present government had to complete the unfinished work left behind by the UPA regime.
“Why didn’t the Congress form a national testing body when the UPA was in power? The prime minister today had to complete the UPA’s unfinished task,” Singh said. “The UPA in its second term completely ignored a key panel’s inputs to stop exam leaks,” he said, adding the Opposition’s outrage is proof that it is very well aware of the UPA-era exam paper leaks.
In his response to the Union minister, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge directly raised the issue of police action against young protesters at Jantar Mantar in Delhi and demanded that Union Home Minister Amit Shah clarify what he described as police brutality.
“Home Minister Amit Shah must give an answer on police brutality. Why is he silent on the crackdown? He must clarify. If not, he must resign,” Kharge said. “Driven by the fear of losing power, the government conceded to the demands, though its underlying motive was to protect its own position rather than genuinely address the students’ grievances,” Kharge said.
The BJP strongly protested Kharges remarks against the Home Minister, describing them as a threat of violence.
Kharge alleged that the bill to amend the law on exam paper leaks was primarily introduced to ease the prevailing tension and placate agitating students and young people. The protests over the paper leak issue, led by the satirical political group CJP, were called off following the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan as Union Education Minister.
The amendment bill seeks to increase the maximum jail term to 10 years and the fine to Rs 50 lakh for offences related to exam paper leaks. For service providers involved in such malpractices, the maximum fine has been raised from Rs 1 crore to Rs 5 crore, while the period of debarment from conducting public examinations has been doubled from four to eight years.
After moving the bill, Union Minister Jitendra Singh referred to Prime Minister Narendra Modis announcement of a high-level expert task force to make the public examination system leak-proof. He added that substantial progress has been achieved in implementing the recommendations to strengthen the overall examination ecosystem.