Heads have started rolling in the infamous Bihar Class 12 toppers’ scam, with Chairman of Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) lalkeshwar Prasad Singh resigning on Wednesday, fearing his dismissal.
As a stopgap arrangement, Patna Divisional Commissioner Anand Kishore has been named the Chairman of BSEB.
Meanwhile, the Bihar Police on Wednesday arrested Shail Kumari, principal GA College that was the examination centre of Vishnu Rai College, the alma mater of some of the dubious toppers.
lalkeshwar Singh, whose involvement in the scam is suspected on the basis of the evidence seized from his chamber by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Bihar Police, is likely to be arrested any moment.
After the intervention of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who ordered filing of an FIR, the Bihar Education Department swung into action.
The SIT team also raided the Rs topper-producing’ Vishnu Rai College in Vaishali district and seized documents from there. Its director Bachcha Rai is absconding.
The SIT personnel visited the residences of at least three toppers, who are among the accused named in the FIR lodged by the Education Department with the police. None of them were at home and police put notices outside their residences directing them to appear before the SIT on Wednesday by 7 pm.
However, till the time of filing this report there was no response from the three students.
Raids were also conducted in Boys’ High School, Rajendra Nagar, Patna where the answersheets of Vishnu Rai College had been evaluated. The team seized the list of the examiners and other authorities from there. The scam came to the light when in interviews to a national Hindi news channel two Class 12 toppers from the State, Ruby Kumari (Arts) and Saurabh Shrestha (Science), gave shocking replies, betraying their ignorance of the very subjects they ‘topped’ in.
Kumari shocked the interviewer when she said she had studied subjects including “Prodical Science” (Political Science) in which she got 91 marks out of 100. When prodded about this subject, she said, “This is all about cooking.” Similarly, the Science topper Shrestha did not even know what electrons and protons were.
Boys High School principal Bisheshwar Yadav made a startling revelation to the SIT that when the centre received the answer sheets of Vishnu Rai College, the seals of the bundles were already broken, whereas the seals of the bundles from other colleges were intact.
Significantly, the answer sheets of Vishnu Rai College reached the BSEB from the district strong room in Vaishali even before being sent to the evaluation centre.
The SIT has got a number of documents which suggest that it was on the order of the BSEB Chairman that Patna was selected as the evaluation centre for Vishnu Rai College and not Bhojpur where the copies of other colleges of Vaishali district had been evaluated.
The cops seized hardware of the computers and laptops of the Chairman on Tuesday, a day before he resigned.
Incidentally, Singh was compelled to resign after receiving a notice from the education department on Wednesday morning to explain within 24 hours why he should not be dismissed. Singh sent his resignation letter immediately after receiving this terse notice.
Commenting on the developments Education Minister Ashok Chaudhary said, “The Government action will definitely send a positive signal. It also proves that our Government will not spare anybody who tries to go against its policies and convictions.”
Significantly, the director of Vishnu Rai College Bachcha Rai, who is supposed to be close to RJD supremo lalu Prasad, is also likely to be arrested soon.
When asked about Bachcha Rai, lalu shot back, “Who is this Bachcha RaiIJ Arrest him. Put him in jail. He has lowered the image of Bihar. Nobody involved in this scam should be allowed to go scot-free.”
Incidentally, photos had appeared in local newspapers of Rai sitting behind lalu at some function. He also reportedly campaigned for lalu’s sons Tej Pratap and Tejashwi Yadav in their Assembly constituencies in the November 2015 elections.