Here's a timeline of Bihar board exam cheating cases, history and scams
In 2008, India's Supreme Court said students caught cheating during exams deserved "no leniency and should be severely punished".
The Bihar School Examination Board is all set to declare its much-awaited results in a week's time or so.
There is a popular notion across the country that the maximum number of civil service officers hail from Bihar. However, every year the state is condemned for cheating practices either ahead of the exam, during the exam or while paper checking.
Although Bihar has been in news for mass cheating, topper-scam, etc, it was only noticed by the entire world when the famous case of topper Ruby Rai came into light. Ruby topped in political science, but she was not even able to pronounce it properly and knew nothing about the subject.
Supreme Court's verdict on cheating:
In 2008, India's Supreme Court said students caught cheating during exams deserved "no leniency and should be severely punished".
If our country is to progress, we must maintain high educational standards, and this is only possible if malpractices in examinations are curbed with an iron hand.
How does cheating take place in Bihar?
Because of political affiliations, people like Bacha Rai are actively involved in cheating scams in Bihar. Although the government is taking strict action against cheating, these groups are coming up with new ideas.
Requesting anonymity, a cheating group revealed that if there are CCTV Cameras, which only record the visuals, they dictate the answers to the students.
Cheating has become a normal norm in Bihar. Bacha Rai, who was the head of Bishundeo Rai College, was involved in such practices since 2005.
Bacha Rai was said to be friends with Ruby Rai's father, who requested him to get his daughter passed.
According to a report published in The Times of India, after the exam a few answer sheets from the strong room, an official centre to deposit answer sheets, were transported to Bishundeo Rai College for corrections.
"Finally, the new answer sheets were submitted in the strong room. The new answer sheets were fake as it did not have watermark logo of BSEB," said Patna Senior Superintendent of Police Manu Maharaj.
He used to give Rs 5,000-10,000 per paper to the subject experts to change the answer sheets. "These amounts were allegedly paid by Bacha Rai. These experts were Rai's men, who had earlier helped him in the scandal," he added.
Bacha Rai was caught twice in 2005 and 2007, but due to political connections, he was set free.
Timeline of cheating episodes in Bihar:
In 2013, about 1,600 students were expelled for cheating and around 100 parents were detained for helping students cheat in Bihar School Examination Board, reported by the BBC.
In 2014, more than 200 students were caught cheating and were expelled.
In 2015, the false practice of mass cheating became so common in Bihar that hundreds of parents were caught on camera as they were hanging on the walls of the examination hall. More than 1,600 students were expelled for cheating in the Bihar board examinations.
State Education Minister PK Shahi said it would be difficult to conduct fair exams without help from parents, given the potential number of people involved.
"Three to four people helping a single student would mean that there is a total of six to seven million people helping students cheat," he said.
In 2016, a bizarre case of three toppers came to light in which the toppers, including the Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) Arts and Humanities topper Ruby Rai, Science topper Saurabh Shrestha, and third topper in Science stream Rahul Kumar, were unable to answer the basic questions related to the subjects they had topped in!
Another case of cheating grabbed the limelight, where three examinees were arrested for allegedly cheating using the mobile phone messaging application WhatsApp in Bihar Combined Entrance Competitive Examination in Begusarai district.
In 2017, with a shocking history of explicit cheating cases, Bihar government tried to make the process of examination stricter, adopting fair checking and invigilation practices. As a result, more than 64 per cent students failed in the examination.
In 2018, despite putting several security checks, over 1,000 students were expelled for cheating during the Class 12 examinations in Bihar.
Anand Kishore, the Chairman of the Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB), told the media that more students were expelled "for adopting unfair means" during the examinations.