New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed a closure report in the case pertaining to the alleged leak of the University Grants Commission–National Eligibility Test (UGC–NET) question paper in 2024.
The juvenile in question had shared a screenshot of a “doctored” paper on social media platform Telegram, which resulted in the cancellation of the entire exam in the country.
The CBI filed the report after it was established that the said paper was not leaked and that the screenshot was in fact “doctored”. The agency said it was floated by a juvenile who tried to earn some quick money.
The National Forensic Sciences University in Gandhinagar also looked into the authenticity of the screenshot and found it to be doctored.
“The screenshot was found to be fake. It was created using a special application. The screenshot of an official 18 June paper was backdated to 17 June and circulated, to give people the impression that he had had the paper a day before the exam. This made people believe that he had access to the next papers too,” the source told ThePrint.
The source added the juvenile was just looking to make some quick money.
“He asked anything between 2 to 3 thousand rupees from people who were looking for leaked question papers. By fooling people, he made a few thousand,” the source said.
The juvenile was called for questioning along with his parents, but was let off after counselling, sources said. Following this, it was decided the CBI would file the closure report since no actual leak had happened in this case.
Also read: ‘Leaked’ UGC-NET paper that led to cancellation ‘doctored, circulated by school student’
How did it happen?
According to sources in the government, the school student used an app to create a doctored screenshot of an original question paper of 18 June, but backdated it to 17 June. He shared this on 18 June itself after applicants wrote the paper.
He wanted to convince people he had had access to this paper, as well as upcoming UGC-NET subject-specific question papers, sources said, adding that the school student earned around Rs 20,000 by promising to send people the next paper.
The National Cybercrime Threat Analysis Unit of the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C), under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), first detected the threat and conveyed it to the Ministry of Education citing a possible “breach” as the screenshot of questions matched with the original set.
A complaint was filed in the matter, which said the National Testing Agency (NTA) conducted the UGC-NET exam on 18 June in two shifts across different cities, but on 19 June, the University Grants Commission (UGC) received inputs from the I4C, saying “integrity of the aforesaid examination may be compromised”.
Subsequently, the Ministry of Education cancelled the examination for entry-level teaching jobs in Indian universities and admission to PhD programmes, just a day after it was held. The exam would again be held between 21 August and 4 September, 2024.
Over 9 lakh candidates were to write the common exam across 317 cities before it got cancelled midway last year.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
Also read: NMC decides to hold NEET-UG in pen & paper mode again this year. Not online, as govt panel advised