Those topping in Bihar Board Class XII exam end up in jail. This is what has been happening for the last two years. last year on June 25, it was arts topper Ruby Rai who was sent to jail and now this year’s topper Ganesh Kumar was arrested on Friday night.
Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) which conducts the exams say the nature of the two arrests was different. Rai
of Vaishali had been arrested after going underground for a fortnight for topping the list even though she had no
merit and Ganesh was held for fraud.
Ganesh was arrested by Kotwali police on Friday night from the board office after the BSEB filed an FIR against him and called police. He was sent to jail after being produced in the court. But before that police interrogated him for hours and took him to some places on his identification. The next on police radar are the authorities of the institution from where Ganesh had appeared in the +2 exam showing his age as 24 whereas he was 42.
It is quite interesting to see that Ganesh claimed his age as 24 with June 2, 1993 as his date of birth and the arrest was made on his “fake” birthday. But the records prove that he had passed matriculation exam in 1990. Showing the old records BSEB chairman Anand Kishore said his actual date of birth was November 7, 1975. In 1990 he did his matriculation from CRSR High School at Suriya in Giridih district, then in undivided Bihar and also passed his intermediate exam.
But in a bid to erase or forget the past academic records, Ganesh, who has two school going sons, passed Class X exam in 2015 from Sanjay Gandhi High School, Samastipur.
Soon after the arrest of Ganesh, principal of Ram Nandan Singh Jagdip Narain Inter School Abitendra Kumar went underground apprehending trouble. Also missing is his father and school’s founder Jawahar Prasad Singh, who is a senior BJP functionary and, the party had fielded him in Assembly election in 1985 and 1990 from Kalyanpur.
On Saturday, the school was deserted. Police is likely to interrogate the school authorities about Ganesh who was supposed to be its regular student. The BSEB has already issued notice to the school for termination of its affiliation.
After interrogating Ganesh, Patna SSP Manu Maharaaj said he worked in a non banking finance company as agent in Giridih and did fraud with that company of Rs 15 lakh after which he fled from there and made Samastipur his new abode.
“He was desperately looking for a Government job and for that he lowered his age and appeared in exam hoping that high marks would help him get job,” said the top cop.
The issue has also created differences in the Government. Education Minister Ashok Chaudhary, apparently unhappy over his reprimand by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, skipped the Cabinet meeting and vent his ire at BSEB chairman blaming him for the wrong doing.
Senior bureaucrat Anand Kishore had been appointed BSEB chairman last year after the topper scam came to fore. He is also Commissioner of Patna and IG of Prison. He is supposed to be a favourite officer of the CM but the JD(U) has opened a front against him with party spokesman Neeraj Kumar accusing BSEB of the fresh scam.