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By:

Quaid Najmi

4 January 2025 at 3:26:24 pm

TET postponed after paper leak, three held

Mumbai: In another shocker, the Maharashtra Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) question paper has ‘leaked’ - barely 24 hours before the scheduled examination on Sunday - jeopardising the future of thousands aspiring to join the noble profession of teaching, officials said here. Reacting quickly, the Maharashtra State Council of Examination cancelled Sunday’s paper scheduled to be held simultaneously at 1,028 centres across the state and said that the new date will be announced early next week. As...

TET postponed after paper leak, three held

Mumbai: In another shocker, the Maharashtra Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) question paper has ‘leaked’ - barely 24 hours before the scheduled examination on Sunday - jeopardising the future of thousands aspiring to join the noble profession of teaching, officials said here. Reacting quickly, the Maharashtra State Council of Examination cancelled Sunday’s paper scheduled to be held simultaneously at 1,028 centres across the state and said that the new date will be announced early next week. As many as six lakh candidates were scheduled to appear for the examination across 1,728 centres at 37 locations, officials said. The paper leak was detected and verified swiftly by Bhiwandi Police in Thane district which has arrested three alleged suspected, two from Bihar and one from Haryana, who were planning to hawk it for a staggering sum of Rs. 1.50 crore, suggesting the involvement of an inter-state gang behind the incident. Giving details, the Bhiwandi Additional Commissioner of Police Ashok Dudhe said that the question paper was allegedly being ‘sold’ for a staggering Rs 1.50 crore, indicating a well-organised racket transcending the state border. He said that early on Saturday, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP-II) Dr. Pawan Bansod received a confidential tip-off and he immediately alerted senior officials who launched a discreet operation to track and apprehend the culprits. “An informant tipped us that the accused were travelling from New Delhi to Mumbai carrying copies of the TET question papers. After verification, we laid a trap and arrested the three suspects in Bhiwandi. However, the kingpin/s behind the racket remain absconding,” Dudhe said. Police said that the papers were to be sold for Rs 1.50 crore for which advance was reportedly collected from some persons. The arrested accused are: Rajiv Shah, 45 and Akash Kumar, 30, both of Patna in Bihar and Dheeraj Kumar, 28, of Panipat in Haryana. Four Sets Official sources said that the police sleuths accosted the suspected trio in a local hotel room where they were staying, questioned and searched them. They recovered four sets of purported copies of the crucial TET paper from them. Upon sustained questioning they admitted that these were the copies of the TET examination question paper of June 28. Experts from the MSCE were immediately summoned to confirm the documents recovered and the officials confirmed that many of the questions apparently were similar to those in the official TET exam paper of Sunday. Armed with the information, the Kongaon Police Station in Bhiwandi initially detained the trio, filed a case and then placed them under arrest. They are slapped with charges under the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita Sections 318(4), 316(5) and 61(2), besides stringent sections of the Maharashtra Examination Act, 2024, said Senior Police Inspector (HQ) Shailesh Salvi. As news of the paper leak spread like wildfire, thousands of candidates vent their ire before the mediapersons and on social media, demanding an overhaul of the public examinations monitoring systems and stringent punishment to the accused. SIT Formed The Thane Police have formed a 9-member SIT comprising Dr. Bansod, Sachin Sangle, Dr. Vinay Marathe and other officers, to investigate the source of the leak, identify the masterminds, and determine whether the network was linked with similar examination scams across the country. The TET paper leak comes days after the nationwide furore over the NEET 2026 exam paper leak with questions raised on the country’s public examinations system amid claims and assurances of tight security and monitoring. Congress, CJP flay govt Maharashtra Congress President Harshwardhan Sapkal and Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke pounced on the state government, accusing it of failing to safeguard the future of thousands of deserving candidates. They demanded a thorough probe and stringent action against everyone involved, lamenting how a series of examination scandals have damaged the credibility of the state’s education and public exams systems. “The government is not bothered. They are busy with breaking political parties. The so-called double-engine regime is to be blamed for the ‘double-leaks’ in such a short time. The education minister must resign,” demanded Dipke. The examination system has come under a cloud with several entrance and recruitment exams, including the NEET, UGC-NET, the Maharashtra TET and others cancelled or being probed in the past three years, triggering huge public outrage and raising question marks on the careers of lakhs of candidates.

Lateral upgrade to ailing annihilation

Updated: Oct 21, 2024

Lateral upgrade to ailing annihilation

Being the first person from the private sector to be appointed as chairperson of Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) as part of the government’s lateral initiative, Madhabi Puri Buch also holds the honour of being the first woman to hold the top post as capital market regulator.

But the laurels that the former private sector banker enjoyed in her earlier stint with ICICI Bank, was marred with allegations that she and her husband were having a stake in offshore entities, which were used to artificially inflate shares of Adani group companies.

Terming the allegation as `character assassination, Buch clarified that all disclosures have already been furnished and the fund in question did not invest in any securities involving the Adani group.

When it rains, it pours. This allegation was subsequently followed by Congress Party allegation that Buch had received salary and post-retirement benefits from ICICI Bank after she quit the private sector bank.

In its clarification to the stock exchanges, ICICI Bank asserted that the payments made to Buch were purely retirement benefits after her exit from the bank and they were neither salary nor employee stock options.

Prior to these allegations, Buch tenure at SEBI was all about bringing in quick reforms on operational issues by changing the format of consultation paper to bring in larger responses digitally. Being data savvy, the rationale of her decisions were democratic based on big data analysis derived from the responses received to the consultation papers.

Further she bifurcated the duties of the SEBI staff between operations and enforcement, which were done by the same persons earlier. Having worked for the private sector in the capital market domain space, Buch had a better understanding of the subject compared to officers from the administrative service in the past that reflected even in her orders as a whole-time director at SEBI before becoming the chairperson. As a whole time director at SEBI, her orders on adjudication issues were more directional to the capital market space, according to experts in the compliance space. She was also quick to revamp the old provisions of the 90s at SEBI.

Being tech and data savvy, Buch enhanced regulatory surveillance and detection of market manipulation, insider trading and fraud while also emphasizing on strengthening corporate governance by introducing stricter rules for independent directors and enhancing disclosures for related-party transactions.

To put in perspective, the annual report of the capital market regulator in the just concluded financial year revealed that the number of investigations related to insider trading jumped to 175 in 2023-24 from 85 in the preceding year while probes related to front running jumped over three times to 83 from 24 in the preceding year.

Transparency in mutual funds by implementing measures to protect retail investors along with tightening norms for initial public offers, particularly in the SME platforms were some of her other positive initiatives including confirmation of denial of any market rumours within 24 hours for the top 100 listed companies which will be extended to top 250 companies from December 1. However increased transparency and compliance with tightening regulations led to increased operational costs for the market participants and hence faced resistance from certain quarters. Born in 1966, Buch completed her primary education in Mumbai and graduated with specialization in Mathematics from Delhi and later obtained a management degree from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. In between, she got engaged to Dhawal Buch, a director at a consumer goods multinational at the age of eighteen and got married at the age of 21.

Besides ICICI Bank, Buch also worked as a lecturer at a college in England, worked at Greater Pacific Capital in Singapore and ICICI Securities as its CEO. She also worked as executive director on several private sector companies and as a consultant for New Development Bank (Brics Bank).

What now remains to be seen, is whether Buch, who survived the 26/11 terror attack when she along with her husband, was attending a meeting at Taj, be able to overcome the current ordeal. Keeping fingers crossed for the times to come.

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