2 teachers, tutor held; CBSE official suspended

NEW DELHI: Two teachers of a private school and a coaching centre tutor, all from outer Delhi, have been arrested for allegedly leaking CBSE’s Class 12 economics paper over an hour before the March 26 exam, police said on Sunday.

Hours later, the ministry of human resource development (HRD) responded to the breakthrough in the investigation and suspended a Central Board of Secondary Education official who was supervising the examination centre in question. The official, KS Rana, was found to be “lax” in his duties, tweeted Anil Swarup, secretary, HRD ministry.

The two teachers opened the sealed question papers, took photos on their mobile phones, and shared them with a tutor in a private coaching centre in Bawana. The three also solved the paper, and forwarded the question papers and answers to other students through WhatsApp for between ₹2,000 and ₹5,000, police said. “Rana was the custodian of the question papers. It is hard to believe the leak could have happened without his connivance. We will question him soon,” said a senior investigator who asked not to be named.

The teachers have been identified as Rishabh, 29, and Rohit, 26, and the coaching centre tutor as 26-year-old Tauqeer Hasan, police said, giving only one name for the two accused teachers.

Hasan taught math at Easy Classes, a coaching centre in Asthal Colony in Bawana. Rishabh taught physics and Rohit taught math at the Mother Khazani Convent School in Mungeshpur, along the Delhi-Haryana border.