Oppn stages walkout over question paper leakage

Thiruvananthapuram, Mar 22: The Congress-led Opposition staged a walkout in the Kerala Assembly today alleging irregularities in the conduct of the SSLC examination and the government's reluctance to take action against those responsible for the leakage of question papers.

Seeking leave for an Adjournment Motion on the issue, Mr K C Venugopal (Cong) alleged that Chemistry and History (old scheme) examinations were postponed following the leakage of the question papers.

The credibility of examinations had been lost, following continued incidents of question paper leakage, he said and alleged that the government was protecting those responsible for it.

Leading the walkout, Leader of the Opposition Oommen Chandy asked the government what action it had taken against the persons responsible for the leakage of the SSLC model examination question papers on the basis of the report of the Crime Branch Police which probed the leakage. The government kept the report as a secret as it wanted to protect those responsible for the leakage, he alleged.

Replying to notice for the motion, Education Minister M A Baby said no question papers had been leaked out and what had happened was some mix-up, following wrong printing of code numbers on the question paper packets.

The printing press which committed the mistake would be blacklisted and an inquiry would be conducted to find out whether there was any conspiracy for the wrong printing, he said.

Mr Baby said the government also proposed to delink SSLC old scheme examination from the regular SSLC examination from next year.

Speaker K Radhakrishnan refused leave for the motion in the light of the Minister's reply.

UNI