SC Favours the Cancellation of 2017 SSC Exam

Recently, it has been announced that around 1.9 lakh candidates may have to appear for the SSC Tier 2 online exam again. This exam was conducted for 9,372 vacancies. The Supreme Court has favoured the decision and has decided to scrap off the exam. This has been done because the question paper was leaked.

The Supreme Court has ordered that fresh exams will be conducted either by the National Testing Agency or the CBSE. The view was given by a bench of justices namely SA Bobde and L Nageswara Rao. They stated that in the present scenario where the question paper was leaked re-examination is the best alternative. This is the only option by which the interest of the students can be protected. It was simply impossible to find out that how the question paper got leaked and who were exactly the candidates involved in this default. The CBI probe has also requested for some more time in order to complete its investigation. In this scenario it is best to cancel the exam. Advocate Prashant Bhushan had appeared for the petitioners. He agreed with Supreme Court’s suggestion. On the other hand Solicitor General Tushar Mehta was against the decision of scrapping of the exam. His reason of doing so was that it was only a bunch of students who took the undue benefit of leak of the examination paper. It is not justiciable to make all the students suffer because of it. The bench was of the view that it is absolutely impossible to chalk out the number of beneficiaries of the leaking of the paper. This way any decision taken would put the entire examination process under suspicion. The bench has not given its final decision regarding this matter because Solicitor General Tushar has asked for more time to study CBI probe report. The case will now be heard on November 13. The court had asked the Staff Selection Commission that it should not declare its results for the 2017 Combined Graduate and Higher Secondary Level Examinations after the CBI was of the view that the government officials were also involved in the leaking of the question paper for the online exam which was held in February. The papers were leaked on social media. The CBI had reported that the question paper was leaked before the scheduled time of the exam. The candidates made use of certain software for solving the question paper with the help of outside help from unknown people. The agency was also of the view that even SSC officials were involved in this entire scam. Therefore proper probe and investigation was important to track the culprit. The CBI stated that the site supervisor of respective examination centres illegally shared the screen of their PCs with unknown persons. The supervisors violated the guidelines of the SSC and committed default. The CBI has called this a criminal conspiracy on the part of the supervisors and the students who abused the guidelines, which is very shameful. The CBI stated that screenshots of question papers have been found on social media along with the answer keys at around 10:10 AM when the exam was scheduled to start at 10:30 AM on that particular day. Indeed this is a very shameful happening that has questioned the integrity of the Staff Selection Commission. It is important that proper investigation takes place in the matter and after CBI’s final report and assessment, the decision should be taken. This is a matter of national importance and it should be resolved in a manner that it provides justice two all the SSC aspirants.

By: Anuja Arora
Content: https://m.timesofindia.com/home/education/news/sc-favours-scrapping-of-2017-ssc-exam-to-be-conducted-afresh-by-nta-or-cbse/amp_articleshow/66418191.cms