The prestigious JEE Mains examination which is a stepping stone for IITs and NITs came under the shadow of manipulation and cast the results in doubt, when the CBI booked a company called Affinity Education and its directors for solving questions for candidates using remote access in return for huge payments. The exam was taken online this year.
This scam can affect all the students who have appeared for the exam, said stakeholders. Advocate Anubha Srivastava Sahai, who has been an integral part of many petitions filed by the JEE and NEET aspirants said that the exams should be conducted again to give a "fair chance" to the students who worked hard for the entrance. "This happens every year and other students who are preparing for 2-3 years and working hard suffer. The whole purpose is defeated. They should conduct the exam again to give a fair chance to all. This will have an impact on the merit list," said the advocate.
Congress' student wing, NSUI held the BJP government at the centre responsible for such fiascos. "Since BJP has come to power, cheating innocent students by charging them lakhs of "bribes" for admission in desired colleges is the new trend. This is coupled with papers getting leaked for every examination. Education is the right of students and should be provided only according to their merit and the ranks they earn, not on the basis of money," said Neeraj Kundan, National President of the NSUI.
The CBI has arrested seven persons including two directors of the Noida-based private institution in connection with alleged manipulation of JEE Mains examination 2021, officials said Friday. The arrests were made after the registration of a case against Affinity Education and three directors --Siddharth Krishna, Vishwambhar Mani Tripathi and Govind Varshney -- besides other touts and associates.
The agency has arrested Krishna and Tripathi besides four employees Ritik Singh, Anjum Dawoodani, Animesh Kumar Singh and Ajinkya Narhari Patil, the officials said. Another person Ranjit Singh Thakur was arrested from Jamshedpur, they said. Varshney, who had recently joined the company, is suspected to be on the run, they said, adding that the agency is contemplating issuing a look-out notice against him.
The CBI had conducted searches at 19 locations on Thursday during which around 20-30 post-dated cheques were received which were suspected to be the payments for ensuring help in clearing the examination, the officials said. During the searches, it surfaced that the accused had sent the messages to delete the data from their systems. The agency has also stumbled upon leads that show that some payments were allegedly made through hawala channels as well, they said.
Senior CBI officials have assured that bona fide candidates need not worry. It is alleged that the directors in conspiracy with other associates and touts were "manipulating the online examination of JEE (Mains) and facilitating aspiring students to get admission in top NITs in consideration of huge amount by solving the question paper of the applicant through remote access from a chosen examination centre in Sonepat (Haryana)", CBI Spokesperson RC Joshi had said.
Several other examination centres and a Bengaluru-based suspected mastermind of the alleged racket are also under the scanner and the CBI is carrying out searches, the officials said. It was also alleged that the accused used to obtain Class 10 and 12 mark sheets, the user IDs, passwords, and post-dated cheques of aspiring students in different parts of the country as security and once admission was done, they used to collect heavy amounts ranging from Rs 12-15 lakh (approx) per candidate, Joshi had said.
With PTI inputs
