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The AIPGME 2012 question paper leak is all over the news.Always there has been rumours about All India PG question paper being available on the night before the exam at select centers, especially Delhi.One such rumour was that if you are writing exam in Delhi, you will be approached by agents and if you are willing to pay about 5 lakhs, you will get the question paper about 12-14 hours earlier(But those arrested this year paid about 40lakhs, reflects the inflationary tendency in bribes paid).Though we never had any proof to this till now, the arrests made on the day of AIPGME 2012 proves the fact that this exam is not helping those students it is expected to benefit.

Vulnerable points

These are the vulnerable points from where a question paper maybe leaked.

1.The question paper printing press.

2.While transported to exam centers.

3.At the exam center.

The printing press and the exams centers are places where the questions papers have the greatest chance for being leaked. As the workers in these places would like some extra change, there is a chance of them abetting fraudsters in granting access to the question papers.

The one fact I noted while writing exam was that, these question paper sets were already open when brought to exam hall( except the seals of individual papers). This practice of opening the question paper sets before exam has paved way for a greater chance for questions being leaked.If there is a  fraud candidate who is writing exam for leaking it, if they act together with a high ranking official at the exam center, they can open the seal of his/her exam paper on the previous day and yet get away uncaught.This can occur because the tampered question paper can be issued to the same candidate itself on the day of exam, so that any question of malpractice won’t arise.

The only remedy is that either the exam should be online so that hard copy of question papers will not be available to people at exam centers on the day before the exam.Another option is to open each set of question paper in front of the candidates to prevent any malpractice.

Though there is news about a few arrests being made on the leaking of question papers it is highly unlikely that just a few people are involved. There maybe a greater majority enjoying the benefits, because those who are caught appears to be amateurs, venturing into this business for the first time.

Hard criminals with blessings of higher authorities will not be as foolish as these people to get caught.The chance of getting caught always exists because there will be an unsatisfied customer or one who has been denied service who will eventually tip off the police regarding the leak.

Though a crime of very high magnitude has been uncovered, there is no news regarding whether the exam will be cancelled. The exam which itself was very very tough was intended to kill off the passion any medical graduate has for the practice of medicine.Fewer than 50 questions could be read with ease, other questions were so lengthy and filled with grammatical errors that left many PG aspirants perplexed. By the time the exam finished, those writing the exam were either exhausted ,angry or both.

Now a few questions remain, in the minds of PG aspirants all over India.

1.Does AIIMS faculty know the answers of all the questions they set?

2.Why is there a difficulty in publishing the keys?

3.Will there be a re test?

The obvious answers are

1. AIIMS faculty most probably have no idea regarding the answers to those confusing questions they set.The origins of only a very few of these questions can be traced to any standard text book or reference book.Most of these questions are set based on the research conducted at AIIMS, which no one else has access to!

2.Publishing the key will lead to a lot of controversies. The practice of withholding the key shows the inability of the question setters to defend their answers.Only a question setter who has comprehensive knowledge can set a indisputable question paper.If a few persons with such high caliber are entrusted the task of setting the AIPGME question paper, keys can be published and questions can be made public.

3.Every year a few arrests have been made in connection to PGI,AIIMS and AIPGE but in near history a re test has never been conducted. It seems that these institutions just want to conduct an exam and get some students to fill their seats, rather than ensure the quality of students they take in.

The government of India and the Supreme court should take some concrete steps regarding the conduct of these exams and ensure that merit is preserved to the full extent. The government should show the spine to conduct a re-test when a fraud of this massive scale has been unearthed rather than just limit this to a few people and prevent any re-test being conducted.

Let us all hope that a fair decision will be taken and all those found guilty will be punished, even though it may seem to be a remote possibility.