Prayagraj: A suspected case of UP Board exam answer booklet tampering has surfaced during the evaluation of chemistry papers linked to Pt Anant Ram Pandey Inter College in Karchhana, Prayagraj– one of the centres from where answer booklets were routed for assessment at an evaluating centre in western UP.Evaluators found that out of 286 answer booklets, 42 had differences in handwriting between the main ‘A’ booklet and the ‘B’ supplementary sheets. The pattern raised suspicion that the ‘B’ sheets may have been written outside the examination hall and later tagged with the original script. In several cases, answers initially written in the ‘A’ booklet were struck off and re-written in different handwriting in the ‘B’ booklet. Some responses were also reattempted in English, indicating a change in language and writing style that did not match the candidate’s original script. Another red flag emerged when signatures of invigilators on the ‘A’ and ‘B’ booklets were found to be inconsistent. The issue was first flagged by a deputy controller at a western district evaluation centre, who sent a detailed report to the chief controller seeking guidance for further action. The report underlined that such discrepancies could compromise the sanctity of the examination process. Taking cognisance, board secretary Bhagwati Singh directed that the suspicious answer booklets be immediately deposited at the regional office in Prayagraj for expert screening. He further ordered an intensive scrutiny of answer booklets of the same roll numbers in other subjects to find any wider pattern of tampering. The district inspector of schools, Prayagraj, PN Singh, has been instructed to take custody of CCTV recordings from all examination rooms at the centre. He has also been asked to verify the exact timeline of when the answer booklets reached the collection centre and cross-check invigilation duty records to ascertain whether procedures were followed as per norms. The board has also decided to issue appreciation certificates to evaluation officials who detected and reported the anomaly. Meanwhile, evaluation of answer booklets is currently underway at 254 centres across the state and is scheduled to be completed by April 1. Singh earlier ordered suspension of evaluation on March 26 due to the Ram Navami public holiday. Following a fresh govt notification declaring March 27 as a holiday as well, evaluation has now been paused for two days and will resume on March 28. On Wednesday alone, 80,462 examiners evaluated 18.96 lakh High School and 14.95 lakh Intermediate copies. Bulandshahr district has already completed its evaluation work.
