A student pressure group in Manipur on Thursday demanded a special law with individuals and officials involved in misconducts in examinations by categorically awarding penalty , a long pending demand of the student bodies.
Democratic Students’ Alliance of Manipur (DESAM) informed that recently Manipur Human Rights Commission (MHRC) has directed the state government to frame such law.
Addressing a press conference at its office in Imphal today, DESAM secretary L Lamyanba welcomed the directive of the MHRC, hoping that the state government will translate the directive into action at the earliest. He demanded the state government to expedite framing of the proposed law so that it can be enacted before the upcoming examinations in the state.
As taught by past instances, the state needed a stringent law or legislation, the secretary asserted, while taking strong exception to a series of question paper leakage scams reported in the state in the previous years. Exams to be conducted by Board of Secondary Education Manipur (BoSEM) and Council of Higher Secondary Education Manipur (CoHSEM) are to commence from the first week of May this year as the Manipur government has cleared the desk to conduct the exams.
“We don’t want repetition of such ugly practices in the upcoming exams. We want the law before the exams,” he said
He hoped that the government will enact the law before the upcoming exams so that earlier instances of malpractices like question leakage can be checked effectively. The student activist observed that malpractices like question paper leaks were big crimes. Supporting, copying or leak of question papers by officials, teachers, parents or students should be considered as criminal, he said.
“There is no special law or legislation which categorically deals with awarding penalty to individuals and officials involved in leaking examination questions in India, except the State of Karnataka,” he said.
He then added that Manipur too needs such special law to check leakage of question papers.
In the last few years, various scams related to question paper leakage were reported and the concerned authorities of the state government had even constituted committees to enquire into the scams.
However, none of the individuals, officials, teachers or students involved in the scams was penalized for the misconduct as the pertinent authorities never translated recommendations of the enquiry committees into action.
