Chapter 2 UNFAIR MEANS AND OFFENCES

Unfair means.— The unfair means relating to the conduct of a public examination shall include any act or omission done or caused to be done by any person or group of persons or institutions, and include but not be restricted to, any of the following acts for monetary or wrongful gain—

1. (i) leakage of question paper or answer key or part thereof;
2. (ii) participating in collusion with others to effect leakage of question paper or answer key;
3. (iii) accessing or taking possession of question paper or an Optical Mark Recognition response sheet without authority;
4. (iv) providing solution to one or more questions by any unauthorized person during a public examination;
5. (v) directly or indirectly assisting the candidate in any manner unauthorisedly in the public examination;
6. (vi) tampering with answer sheets including Optical Mark Recognition response sheets;
7. (vii) altering the assessment except to correct a bona fide error without any authority;
8. (viii) willful violation of norms or standards set up by the State Government for conduct of a public examination on its own or through its agency;
9. (ix) tampering with any document necessary for short-listing of candidates or finalising the merit or rank of a candidate in a public examination;
10. (x) deliberate violation of security measures to facilitate unfair means in conduct of a public examination;
11. (xi) tampering with the computer network or a computer resource or a computer system;
12. (xii) manipulation in seating arrangements, allocation of dates and shifts for the candidates to facilitate adopting unfair means in examinations;
13. (xiii) threatening the life, liberty or wrongfully restraining persons associated with the public examination authority or the service provider or any authorised agency of the Government; or obstructing the conduct of a public examination;
14. (xiv) creation of fake website to cheat or for monetary gain; and
15. (xv) conduct of fake examination, issuance of fake admit cards or offer letters to cheat or for monetary gain.

Conspiracy for unfair means.— No person or group of persons or institutions shall collude or conspire to facilitate indulgence in any such unfair means.

Disruption to conduct public examination :-

1. (1) No person, who is not entrusted or engaged with the work pertaining to the public examination or conduct of public examination or who is not a candidate, shall enter the premises of the examination centre, with intent to disrupt the conduct of the public examination.
2. (2) No person authorised, engaged or entrusted with the duties to conduct public examination shall, before the time fixed for opening and distribution of question papers––
   • (a) open, leak or possess or access or solve or seek assistance to solve such question paper or any portion or a copy thereof in unauthorised manner for monetary or wrongful gain;
   • (b) give any confidential information or promise to give such confidential information to any person, where such confidential information is related to or in reference to such question paper for monetary or wrongful gain.
3. (3) No person, who is entrusted or engaged with any work pertaining to public examination shall, except where he is authorised in furtherance of his duties so to do, reveal or cause to be revealed or make known to any other person any information or part thereof which has come to his knowledge for any undue advantage or wrongful gain.

Other offences.— If any person or group of persons or institution commits any unfair means or offence under sections 3, 4 and section 5, the service provider shall forthwith report the offence to the concerned police authorities and also inform the public examination authority: Provided that, if the service provider resorts to unfair means and commits the offence or is involved in facilitating an offence, the public examination authority shall report the same to the concerned police authorities.

No premises other than examination centre shall be used for public examination.—It shall be an offence for the service provider or any person associated with the service provider to cause any premises, other than the examination centre, authorised by the public examination authority, to be alternatively used for the purpose of holding public examination, without the written approval of the public examination authority: Provided that, nothing contained in this section shall be an offence where any change in the examination centre without prior consent of the public examination authority is due to any force majeure.

Offences in respect of service providers and other persons :-

1. (1) Any person, including the person associated with a service provider, shall be deemed to have committed an offence if he individually or in collusion with any other person or group of persons or institutions assists any person or group of persons or institutions in any manner unauthorisedly in the conduct of public examination.
2. (2) Service provider or any person associated with it shall be deemed to have committed an offence if he fails to report incidence of any unfair means or commission of any offence.
3. (3) Where an offence committed by a service provider is, prima facie, established during investigation to have been committed with the consent or connivance of any director, manager, secretary or other officer of such service provider, such person shall also be liable to be proceeded against: Provided that, nothing contained in this sub-section shall render any such person liable to any punishment under the Act, if he proves, that the offence was committed without his knowledge and that he exercised all due diligence to prevent the commission of such offence.