CBSE Leak: Breaking into the Board

On March 26, two teachers — Rishabh (29) and Rohit (26) — reached their Mother Khazani Convent School in northwest Delhi's Bawana, unusually two hours prior to their scheduled reporting time. Rishabh teaches Maths, while Rohit's subject is Physics. Five lakh Class XII students across states, and in some foreign centres, were soon to write CBSE's Economics paper.

On exam days, invigilators get question paper packets at 9.45 am, which are opened immediately in the presence of the principal. Exam starts at 10.30 am. Something unusual happened again at the school. The two teachers got packets at 9.10 am and opened them five minutes later. They photographed the paper with their phones and used WhatsApp to send it to Tauqeer Hasan (26), who teaches Maths at Easy Classes in the same area. He sent the questions to his students — a total of 915 people opened and saw the message. Rishabh, Rohit, and Tauqeer perhaps did not notice the school location mark in the corner of the leaked paper.

The whistle

March 27 had nothing unusual about it. West Delhi's Madipur remained buzzing and hot through the day. Chandan Gupta was at his friend Bimal Mishra's house in E Block. Chandan, in his early 20s, lives with his parents, brother and sister in a small house right next door. His father does private jobs. Chandan, his brother and a friend have rented a room for Rs 3,000 a month in B Block to run Maths, Science and Social Science classes for around 30 students.

It was around 9.30 pm. Chandan was exhausted. He had spent the day preparing his students for next day's Class X Maths exam. "We had paneer and sweets. Chandan likes them. Around 10 pm, he said that he would go to the coaching centre to conduct one final night class," recalls Bimal.

Chandan's family is originally from eastern Uttar Pradesh's Gorakhpur. He studied Science in Class XII at a government school. He failed to get admission to Delhi University, given his poor academic record. Unwillingly, Chandan pursued Bachelor's in Arts from an open school. The coaching centre is part of his dreams to overcome middle-class obstacles and make it big. On this fateful night, as the lean, straight-backed man with a boyish face that wears no moustache began covering the 500-metre distance on foot, he had no idea what the rest of the night had in store for him.

As Chandan settled in the classroom, one of his students showed him, on his phone WhatsApp, nine questions of the Maths paper that 17 lakh students had to write in a few hours. "The language and the pattern of the questions made it clear they were from CBSE's original question paper. Every student knew the paper had been leaked," says Chandan, speaking with a thick Hindi accent, allowing English words to creep in, not nervous about the pronunciation. He had the questions transferred on his phone and called the Delhi police. He was told to reach Madipur police station.

He walked the distance, some 800 metres. "Cops asked me to call the student, who had the questions, over. I pleaded… he had the test next day. They didn't listen," says Chandan, with a half-shy smile as he recalls the night. He is aware he is a household name now. Soon, the student, his parents, and 50-60 neighbours were at the police station.

Chandan was held back till 9.30 am. "He called me at 11 am to share his night out. When the test got over at 1.30 pm, cops found that all the nine questions were part of the paper distributed to examinees. They went to his coaching centre and took him away for further questioning. The whistleblower was almost made to look like an offender. They should have informed CBSE the previous night itself," says Bimal.

In the know

But police and CBSE already knew about the leaks. On March 24 itself, CBSE's regional office used WhatsApp to forward a complaint it had received via fax to a police inspector. The complaint that had come from an unknown source at 4.22 pm the previous day said a man named Vicky, who runs a coaching institute in central Delhi's Rajinder Nagar, was involved in leaks. The plaint, which contained some WhatsApp messages and numbers, also named two schools in Rajinder Nagar for their involvement. CBSE officials first thought it to be a mischief to frame the owner of the coaching centre.

Not everything was anonymous. Some officials had noticed that a man, Ravindra Nath Jha, whose Twitter bio says he loves teaching Economics, had tweeted images of the Economics paper at 10.21 am on March 26, the day of the exam. At 6 pm the same day, CBSE's Academic Unit in Delhi's Rouse Avenue received an unaddressed envelope containing four sheets of handwritten answers of the Economics paper. WhatsApp numbers which received the answers were also mentioned. CBSE approached the Delhi police the next day.

Even when Chandan was being questioned at Madipur police station at 11.30 pm, a Twitter account that shares CBSE-related content posted four handwritten pages of the Maths paper. Around the same time, a Class X Maths student, who should have been either sleeping or studying for next morning's test, was soon to tell the Board that the paper had been leaked. He had got it via WhatsApp.

At 1.39 am, the 16-year-old west Delhi student used the Gmail account of his father, who works in a club, to send an e-mail to CBSE chairperson Anita Karwal. He requested her to cancel the exam. The mail contained 12 images of the handwritten Maths paper. The mail was seen at 8.55 am. CBSE went ahead with the exam.

The questions turned out to be the same. The Board approached the police with another complaint. "We were really tense. We didn't know what to do. Much was at stake. Nobody had an idea how to tally the questions. We just hoped the alerts turned out to be false," said a CBSE official. She did not want to be identified.

The admission

Finally, the admission and the announcement came. CBSE said both exams would be held again because of leaks. Prime Minister Narendra Modi called up Union Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar, conveyed his dismay and called for strict action. In February, Modi had conducted a programme called 'Pareeksha Pe Charcha' in Delhi, ahead of the Board exams that started on March 5. He had spoken to students about the importance of confidence and concentration in dealing with exam stress.

Now, lakhs of students hoping to secure admission in some of India's most prestigious universities were shattered. Why should everybody suffer, they ask. They blame CBSE for not cancelling the exams despite having information about the leaks. "I have three entrance exams to write between April 20 and April 26 at three places. I'll have to rush to Delhi for the Economics retest. I'll be in Mumbai on 24th for an entrance test. This is such a mess now. I don't know what to concentrate on," said Amanpreet Kaur, 16, a Humanities student at DPS, Mathura Road.

Security had been breached at several points in CBSE's paper-setting and distribution system. CBSE has its jurisdiction over 19,316 schools in India and 211 abroad. There are 1,118 Kendriya Vidyalayas, 2,734 government/aided schools, 14,860 Independent Schools, 590 Jawahar Novodaya Vidyalayas and 14 Central Tibetan Schools. It is the biggest scandal to have hit India's top education body, also putting more pressure on Modi's government over digital security.

The government is already weathering storms over alleged cracks in its Aadhaar system. The Opposition has upped the ante after a French security researcher flagged flaws in Modi's personal app, alleging that users' data was being shared without their consent. The government has rubbished the charges.

Javadekar said the leaks came from a couple of Delhi schools. But no second school is mentioned in the investigation so far. The Board later said the Economics retest would be held on April 25, and no Maths reexamination was needed because the leaks were limited to Delhi and Haryana. This is despite the fact that 12 people arrested some 1,000 km away by the Jharkhand police have indicated the Maths questions reached them from Patna. On April 4, the Supreme Court dismissed five petitions and said it is the discretion of CBSE to conduct a re-examination and the same cannot be challenged in the court. The petitioners also wanted a CBI probe into the leaks.

The clues

Police reached Tauqeer on March 31 through WhatsApp numbers provided by CBSE and used to circulate the leaked paper. He named Rishabh and Rohit. Rishabh did his BSc from Haryana's Bahadurgarh. Rohit completed his B Tech from Punjab Technical University in 2013 and did his BEd. The three were arrested on April 1. On the same day, CBSE suspended its official, KS Rana, responsible for delivering the Economics paper to the school.

Tauqeer had sold the paper to 25 students and got Rs 60,000, half of which went to the two teachers. Some other teachers and the principal of the school have been questioned. Students and parents say they received offers for a question paper for Rs 10,000-Rs 15,000.

New system

CBSE has introduced a new URL-based question paper delivery system. Exam centres would receive email links to encrypted copies of question papers that they would need to download, decrypt and print, using passwords sent for the purpose. A test run of the new system caused a 30-minute delay on April 2, thanks to insufficient staff and resources.

What next

Of the 4,500 CBSE centres in India, Delhi police is scanning 1,000 in the city, and questioning employees there to find those involved in leaking the Economics questions. Banks, where CBSE keeps question papers, are under the scanner.

So far, police have questioned 100 people including students, parents and teachers, and seized 50 mobile phones for forensic tests to crack the case that has sparked protests and a political slugfest. The police have identified six WhatsApp groups with 50-60 members each suspected to be involved in the scandal. The HRD Ministry has set up a seven-member panel to examine CBSE's conduct of exams. The panel will suggest measures to secure the process and submit a report by May 31.

Unanswered question

The Board said it wouldn’t hold a retest for the Maths paper because the leaks were limited to Delhi and Haryana. This,  despite the fact that 12 people arrested some 1,000 km away by the Jharkhand police have indicated that Maths questions reached them from Patna.

(With inputs from Sakshi Chand, Fareeha Iftikhar & Anvit Srivastava)