SSC paper leak: SC directs CBI to file case diary, status report

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The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the CBI to file the case diary and the status report of the investigation in the 2017 SSC exam paper leak case.

A bench of Justices S A Bobde, S K Kaul and Indira Banerjee said that it will take up the matter for hearing on April 11 as the court was not sitting in the combination which had earlier heard the issue.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the petitioner Shantanu Kumar, submitted that the apex court had earlier directed the CBI to file the status report on the investigation but no fresh report has been filed.

The apex court on April 1 allowed the Staff Selection Commission (SSC) to declare the result of a re-examination of SSC Combined Graduate Level (CGL) 2017 held last year.

It also set up a high powered committee comprising Nandan Nilekani, a co-founder of tech giant Infosys, and renowned computer scientist Vijay P Bhatkar to suggest reforms for conducting of competitive examinations fairly by government bodies.

The top court had said that lakhs of unemployed youths have suffered because someone from the organisation was corrupt. The examination papers of the SSC CGL 2017 were allegedly leaked, leading to huge protests from job seekers for several days.

Amid the protests, the SSC had recommended a CBI probe into the allegations of a paper leak. On August 31 last year, the apex court stayed the declaration of result of the SSC CGL and CHSL Examination, in which lakhs of students had appeared, saying it seemed that the entire test and the system were "tainted".

The apex court then favoured cancelling the 2017 SSC examination, and holding it afresh by the National Testing Agency or the CBSE "in the interest of students". However, the Centre said that there was no need for re-examination of entire paper as the leak was "extremely localised" and those behind the leaks were identified and action was taken.

The SSC is a government body which conducts examinations to recruit staff at multiple levels in various ministries and departments. Several lakh students appear in the SSC examination each year and enter government services in Group C and D Categories of jobs once they qualify.

The SSC Combined Graduate Level exam has a four-tier system, in which tier I and tier II are computer-based, while in tier III and IV, job applicants take up a descriptive paper and a computer proficiency test or skill test.

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