‘Paper leak’ buzz foxes Class 12 kids

NEW DELHI: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) said on Thursday that the Class 12 accountancy question paper hadn’t been leaked, after purported copies of the question paper emerged on WhatsApp during the exam, causing confusion across schools. The board ruled out any repeat of the examination as it had no evidence of any question paper being removed from sealed packets before reaching exam centres.

NEW DELHI: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) said on Thursday that the Class 12 accountancy question paper hadn’t been leaked, after purported copies of the question paper emerged on WhatsApp during the exam, causing confusion across schools.

The board ruled out any repeat of the examination as it had no evidence of any question paper being removed from sealed packets before reaching about 4,000 examination centres in different states.

The CBSE blamed “mischief makers” for sharing copies of a paper on social media only to disturb the conduct of the exam taken by students of commerce on Thursday.

The board now plans to register a police complaint though it could not explain how the questions in 10 pages circulated on WhatsApp matched those in the question paper of Set 2 handed to students by invigilators in the Delhi region.

The three-hour-long exam started at 10.30 am.

Delhi education minister Manish Sisodia tweeted at 11.55 am that there were complaints of a paper leak and that he had directed his officials to investigate it, citing alleged negligence by the CBSE.

“Received complaints about the Class 12 CBSE Accountancy paper being leaked. Have asked officers of Directorate of Education to investigate and lodge a complaint with CBSE. Swift action must be taken, so that hard-working students don’t suffer due to negligence of CBSE,” he wrote. It had been retweeted 552 times by 8.30 pm. Less than two hours later after the tweet, CBSE issued a statement denying any leak. “There has been no leak of the question paper. All the seals have been found intact at the exam centres. During the process of examination, however, at a local level, some miscreants have tried to play mischief by circulating messages through WhatsApp and other social media to disturb the sanctity of the examination,” CBSE spokesperson Rama Sharma said.

Later in the day ,at a high-level meeting at the CBSE headquarters in east Delhi’s Preet Vihar, officials discussed that it was not possible to verify if the message on WhatsApp originated before or after the exam started as the time stamp on a mobile phone could be changed by anyone.

“The paper seal was found intact which means it didn’t get leaked till it reached the examination centres. So the sanctity of the entire exam process has been maintained. However, as there are some similarities in the allegedly leaked paper and the original one, we are verifying if at all someone sent it from a centre. Though it seems unlikely,” an official familiar with the developments said on condition of anonymity .