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The Arunachal Pradesh assembly unanimously passed the Arunachal Pradesh Examination (Measures for Prevention of Unfair Means in Recruitment) Bill Tuesday — a development that comes two years after the state was rocked by a major paper leak.
The Bill, which follows similar legislations passed by the Centre and a clutch of other states, has penalties of imprisonment of up to 5 years and fines up to Rs. 1 crore for candidates found guilty of engaging in unfair practices in recruitment examinations. Under the Bill, service providers engaging in such practices are liable to fines up to Rs 10 crore as well as having the proportionate cost of conducting the examination recovered from them.
Individuals engaged in organised crime face a longer sentence — up to 10 years along with a fine of Rs 1 crore — and institutions engaging in organised crime will be subject to their property being attached.
The state had witnessed public outrage over the functioning of the Arunachal Pradesh Public Service Commission (APPSC) following a 2022 leak in a recruitment exam for assistant engineers and had cast a shadow over Chief Minister Pema Khandu’s last government.
The current assembly session is the first after he was voted back to power with a BJP government in the state earlier this year.
“The origin of this bill is that in 2022, the whole system had been shaken by news of the paper leak in the public service commission examination. I remember the first day on which this news came in the media, at that time I was in Ziro for a tour programme. Media persons there had questioned me then on the news of these events in Itanagar which was spreading, and I had told them on that first day that this was very unfortunate news and that I have no words to define the criminality involved in this. I had said that we will deal with this matter with an iron hand,” he told the assembly on Tuesday.
He also acknowledged the loss of credibility the government had faced after the leak.
“It posed a lot of problems for the government in the last couple of years and rightly so, because the future of our state and society is the youth and working in a government institution is an aspiration. This is a hope for their parents as well,” he said.
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