The Patna civil court on Wednesday issued a warrant of arrest against former Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) chairman Lalkeshwar Singh for his alleged involvement in the fake toppers scam even as Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, in an attempt to save face, ordered a crackdown on the institutions that were tainting the state’s name.
A warrant of arrest was also issued against his wife and former JD(U) MLA Usha Sinha. Mr Singh had gone into hiding after his resignation last week while his wife has been untraceable after her role in the scam was established during an investigation. The authorities removed Ms Sinha from her post as principal of Ganga Devi College on Tuesday. The mastermind behind the toppers scam, Bacha Rai, was taken into custody by the SIT after he surrendered on Saturday.
Meanwhile, the board on Wednesday suspended several of its employees to expose the nexus between Lalkeshwar Singh and the education mafia. The police claimed that the action was taken after SIT found evidence against him and others working with him.
According to Patna SSP Manu Maharaj, “Efforts are on to nab the absconding former BSEB chairman. The investigative team has also found out that Mr Singh knew that answersheets were being tampered with.”
The existence of an education mafia in Bihar came to light when a video of two toppers, Ruby Rai and Saurabh Shrestha, showed them struggling for answers to some very basic questions, putting the entire education system of the state in the dock. Both the students who had ‘topped’ in the state belonged to Bacha Rai’s Vishun Rai College in Vaishali district.
Sources said that the BSEB was aware of the fact that the education mafia was thriving in the state with the help of politicians.
“Though Bacha Rai’s is not an isolated case, now it has been established that he was using political connections and power over the BSEB to get his work done,” educationist and former Patna college principal Prof Nawal Kishore Chaudhary said. Last year, the state education system was globally criticized after an image of a government school in Vaishali district showed people scaling windows, shades and walls to hand over answer chits to students appearing for board exams while the police on duty helped them.
