West Bengal SSC Recruitment Scam | Supreme Court Questions Reliability Of Scanned OMR Sheets; State Claims Tainted Candidates Can Be Segregated

During the hearing of the West Bengal SSC Teachers' Recruitment Case, the Supreme Court highlighted the need to examine the authenticity of the electronic data stored in database of the School Service Commission (SSC) in order to understand whether there can be a distinction made between 'tainted' and 'untainted' candidates. The bench of CJI Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar was hearing the batch of petitions challenging the Calcutta High Court's order setting aside the appointments by the WB School Selection Commission to over 24,000 teaching and non-teaching posts in government schools.The CJI highlighted that the core issue for the Court to consider at present is how credible would be the scanned data of the original copies of the OMR sheets since there is no concrete proof that the original OMR sheets, after being collected from the candidates, were not tampered with before scanning. Notably, the SSC admitted to have destroyed the original OMR sheets after 1 year of the exam in terms of the exam rules. "The question today is the authenticity of the data scanned and the data found in the hard disk, that itself is the subject matter." He explained that the tampering of the results could have also happened before the scanning and uploading of the data either by replacing the OMR answer sheet or filling out the correct answers in a blank copy submitted by a candidate. "Original paper is OMR, if any manipulation is done, it is visible on the sheet, what happens is there are cases in which people do not fill in full answers and there is a possibility of filling those, or there is the possibility of changing the OMR sheet, we don't even know how the checking took place, whether the name was camouflaged..." Notably, the SSC had tasked a private company called NYSA Communications for the scanning and evaluations of the OMR sheets, which was done at the office of the SSC. However, NYSA had sub-delegated the task of scanning to an entity by the name of DATA Scantech Solutions, NOIDA which was present at the premises of SSC for completing the scanning work.Previously, the CBI informed the bench led by then CJI DY Chandrachud that the images of the OMR were handed over by DATA Scantech Solutions to NYSA Communications Private Limited in digital form leaving the original hard copies of the OMR sheets in the office of the SSC. According to the CBI report, the SSC handed over the answer keys for all subjects to NYSA Communications Private Limited for evaluating the OMR responses. CBI seized the server database of the SSC during the course of the investigation.Subsequently, in September 2022, 3 hard disks were recovered from the former NYSA employee Pankaj Bansal containing data of the scanned OMR sheets. A certificate was also taken by Bansal in terms of S. 65B of Evidence Act. The CBI in its report to the Court disclosed that there were mismatches of results found when the Commission's server was tallied with the server from Bansal. "The written marks awarded to candidates as available on the server of the commission had been increased to qualify underserving candidates. This mismatch establishes that manipulation in marks of written examination in the case of many candidates was resorted to and such candidates were identified." the CBI report stated. In light of the same, the CJI today reiterated the issue of mismatch between the data from SSC's server and NYSA's server : "Look there is certain manipulation at your side, whether there was any manipulation by Pankaj Bansal is still unknown, if we go by the prosecution's case as well as the CBI....your employees will be in problem (SSC). What is being highlighted is the difference between the data maintained in the server and what is uploaded as per the mark sheets"The other major aspect that the Court seeks to examine is "whether the database available is the actual authentic database" . "They (CBI) have not been able to ascertain, they have left it neutral .... I am still worried about the blank OMR sheets question, the possibility of change of OMR sheets" the CJI added. Three essential questions were also posed to the CBI : (1) Was the CBI able to ascertain the date on which OMR was captured?; (2) If the Commission had the full data of 22 lakh candidates who appeared for the recruitment exam and (3) whether the hash values indicate the date on which the data was captured and whether there was any change in the data, thereafter On Evidentiary Value Of S.65B Certificate During the hearing, the counsels of the allegedly tainted candidates raised the issue of the non-admissibility of the certificate by Bansal under S. 65B of the Indian Evidence Act and the credibility of his statements on the data server. S. 65B lays down the conditions when can an electronic record be admissible in court proceedings. S.65(4) provides that a certificate disclosing the details of the electronic record has to be signed " by a person occupying a responsible official position in...

West Bengal SSC Recruitment Scam | Supreme Court Questions Reliability Of Scanned OMR Sheets; State Claims Tainted Candidates Can Be Segregated

Anmol Kaur Bawa

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