Chapter III UNFAIR MEANS AND OFFENCES

The unfair means relating to the conduct of a competitive examination shall include any act or omission done or caused to be done by any candidate or 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,— (i) direct or indirect involvement of any candidate himself or with the support of any other person in competitive examination or illegal use of any written, non-written, quoted, copied, printed material, material obtained from electronic or Information Technology (IT) gadgets or taking any unfair and other unauthorized aid or using any unauthorized electronic or mechanical device or gadget, etc. in the examination; (ii) conduct of impersonation in the examination; (iii) leakage of question paper or answer key or part thereof; (iv) participating in collusion with others to effect leakage of question paper or answer key; (v) accessing or taking possession of question paper or an Optical Mark Recognition response sheet or any other mode of answer sheet without authority; (vi) providing solution to one or more questions by any unauthorized person during a competitive examination; (vii) directly or indirectly assisting the candidate in any manner unauthorized in the competitive examination; (viii) tampering with answer sheets including Optical Mark Recognition response sheets; (ix) altering the assessment except to correct a bona fide error without any authority; (x) willful violation of norms or standards set up by the State Government or Maharashtra Public Service Commission for conduct of a competitive examination on its own or through its agency; (xi) tampering with any document necessary for short-listing of candidates or finalizing the merit or rank of a candidate in a competitive examination; (xii) deliberate violation of security measures to facilitate unfair means in conduct of a competitive examination; (xiii) tampering with the computer network or a computer resource or a computer system; (xiv) manipulation in seating arrangements, allocation of dates and shifts for the candidates to facilitate adopting unfair means in examinations; (xv) threatening the life, liberty or wrongfully restraining persons associated with the competitive examination authority or the service provider or any authorized agency of the Government; or obstructing the conduct of a competitive examination; (xvi) creation of fake website to cheat or for monetary gain; and (xvii) conduct of fake examination, issuance of fake admit cards or offer letters to cheat or for monetary gain.

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

(1) No person, who is not entrusted or engaged with the work pertaining to the competitive examination or conduct of competitive examination or who is not a candidate, shall enter the premises of the examination center, with intent to disrupt the conduct of the competitive examination. (2) No person authorized, engaged or entrusted with the duties to conduct competitive 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 unauthorized 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) No person, who is entrusted or engaged with any work pertaining to competitive examination shall, except where he is authorized in furtherance of his duties to do so, 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.

Any person who is appointed as a paper setter for any examination shall not supply or cause to be supplied the question paper drawn by him or a copy thereof or communicate the contents of such paper to any person or give publicity thereto in any manner, except in accordance with the instructions given to him in writing by his appointing competitive examination authority in this behalf.

If any person or group of persons or institution commits any unfair means or offence under sections 3, 4, 5 and section 6, the competitive examination authority or the service provider shall forthwith report the offence to the concerned police authorities and also inform the competitive examination authority: Provided that, if the service provider resorts to unfair means and commits the offence or is involved in facilitating an offence, the competitive examination authority shall report the same to the concerned police authorities.

It shall be an offence for the service provider or the institution or any person associated with the service provider to cause any premises, other than the examination centre, authorised by the competitive examination authority, to be alternatively used for the purpose of holding competitive examination, without the written approval of the competitive 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 competitive examination authority is due to any force majeure.

(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 unauthorized in the conduct of competitive examination. (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 to concerned authority. (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 him: 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 he exercised all due diligence to prevent the commission of such offence.