‘Many high profile people involved’
BHOPAL: SATNA ASHOK SINGH CLAIMS TO BE THE FIRST PERSON TO FIND SEVERAL STUDENTS AT THREE CENTRES, CLEARED EXAMS WITHOUT APPEARING
It took two years for a whistleblower to expose the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) results scam after a South African student passed the exam from Bhind.
A resident of small town Amarpatan, Satna Ashok Singh claims to be the first person who lodged a complaint to ministry of human resource development (HRD) in June 2017 that several students at three centres — Ratlam, Umaria and Sehore — cleared the exam without appearing for it.
After his complaint, a threemember committee was formed to probe the matter in June this year which found irregularities that led to the matter being forwarded to the CBI on August 22.
Ashok, who runs an accredited NIOS centre in Amarpatan, said such irregularities have been reported for several years.
“In 2015, a South African candidate passed class 12th exam from Bhind. I inquired whether he lived there or why he chose Bhind but I didn’t find much proof so I lodged a verbal complaint to authorities in Bhopal but nothing happened,” he said.
“Two years ago, my friend, who also runs an NIOS centre, received a call of an officer in Bhopal that he would get ₹1.5 lakh, if he enrolled 100 students from Haryana at his centre. He also gave him a contact number of middlemen which I noted down ... I have lost the number now,” he added.
Ashok said he unearthed the scam after the 2017 results for class 10 and 12 examinations were announced and the results of several centres’ including his centre were withheld by NIOS.
“I rushed to Bhopal to know the reason. There I came to know that the passing percentage is unduly high and to suppress the matter, the result of some exam centres was withheld. I talked to several people and found out attendance sheets of these three centres. When I matched it with result, I was stunned because in Kendriya Vidhyalaya no 1 Sagod, Ratlam only 19 students appeared in the exam and 698 cleared it. Similarly 351 and 175 students from Sehore and Umaria cleared the exam without appearing in it,” he added.
“The attendance sheets which were sent directly to Bhopal and Guwahati were manipulated...”
However, regional director of NIOS, SR Khan said, “The admission process takes place online. We are just a facilitator. We don’t have any rights. The answer sheets were sent to Guwahati and the result was announced by NIOS, Delhi...”