Kolkata: Suman Mondal, now in police custody and charged with forgery, has set the dubious record of passing class X board exams twice without the knowledge of the state education board.
The first time he appeared for the exams was in 2012, and unhappy with his performance, he retook the examination in 2016 after changing his school and name to Ayan Mondal. He secured pass marks the second time around, too. The passing grade came as a surprise to him; however, as he did not submit his biology answer sheet.
However, Mondal was still unhappy with his marks and this time filed an inquiry under Right To Information (RTI) and went on to meet the administrator of the West Bengal Board Of Secondary Education (WBBSE) Kalyanmoy Ganguly
Upon suspicion of trickery, Ganguly filed a police complaint and Mondal was arrested on Thursday. “Had he not sought to scrutinise his answer script, he would probably have not been caught,” admits a police officer.
Every year, during the board examinations, the country is witness to various kinds of trickery by students — and sometimes parents — trying to ensure better results. It is often found that someone else sits in the examination for the student in lieu of money.
However, the Mondal incident has surprised the teaching fraternity, especially since WBBSE seemed to have no clue about what was going on. “This exposes how negligent the system is. One student after passing the board exams appears for the examination the second time and the board did not even have any clue of the same,” said Ranjit Sen, a teacher.
This incident has also shed light into how the papers are being graded by teachers. “He [Mondal] has himself admitted of not having submitted his biology answer script but he still got pass marks. How was it even possible?” asked another senior teacher who is unwilling to be named.
The board is not looking into its systems as to how Mondal managed to forge his documents and get away with it. Others however believe that he should be further interrogated as he could be admitting to the cheating to give WWBSE a bad name.
“Police should investigate this further into details as a racket could be involved in this whole process,” said a teacher.
Private recruitment agencies say over the years they have found several marks sheets and other fake documents from people applying for blue collar jobs.
“It is not uncommon for us to come across such documents. Initially we used to file a police complaint but it only ends up giving us trouble while the offender roams freely,” said a manager of reputed recruitment agency in Kolkata.