Ruby never wrote exam, confirms probe

Ramashankar, TT, Patna, Oct. 8: Ruby Rai, the controversial state topper in humanities in the Class XII examination conducted by the Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB), had not written her examination papers but hired experts for it.

The startling fact came to fore after the receipt of a forensic report of her handwriting on Friday.

Sharing details of the report, Patna senior superintendent of police (SSP) Manu Maharaaj said on Saturday that Ruby's handwriting didn't match with that in the answer sheets.

"Five out of six papers had been written by experts. The forensic report suggested that Ruby had only written the home science paper," Maharaaj, the head of the special investigation team (SIT) to probe the scam, told The Telegraph.

In addition, the answer sheets didn't have the mandatory watermark.

"It appears that the answer sheets provided to the state topper (read Ruby) were not original," the SSP said, adding that the answer sheets were supplied to the experts outside the examination hall.

Investigations revealed that the answer sheets were also tampered with at the evaluation centre at Balak High School, Rajendra Nagar, Patna. Centre superintendent of Balak High School, Rajendra Nagar, Patna, was made the named accused in the FIR lodged with the Kotwali police station.

Maharaaj said the forensic report would be sent to the court and treated as evidence to substantiate the charges levelled against the accused persons.

The investigating officer of the case had submitted a chargesheet against 32 accused in the case, he added.

The 4,000-page chargesheet was filed against the former chairman of BSEB, Lalkeshwar Prasad Singh, his wife and former Janata Dal United legislator Usha Sinha, principal of Vishun Roy College and alleged kingpin, Bachcha Rai, and former secretary of BSEB Harharnath Jha, the SSP said.

Lalkeshwar, his wife Usha and Jha, are in Beur Central Jail in Patna. The SSP said 20 of the 32 people are government employees and the 12 include the four fake toppers. Nine of the 32 people are still absconding.

Last month, a special juvenile court in Patna granted bail to Ruby, the state topper who had said political science deals with cooking.

The scam surfaced after Ruby gave ludicrous answers to elementary questions related to her subjects.

Class XII science stream topper Saurabh Shreshtha was also caught on camera giving wrong answers to basic science questions.

This led to the speculation that the toppers might have resorted to fraud to achieve the ranks.

Both Ruby and Saurabh belonged to Vishun Roy College at Bhagwanpur in Vaishali district. The BSEB later cancelled their results.

The Vishun Roy College, whose director-cum-principal is Amit Kumar alias Bachcha Rai, is considered close to RJD boss Lalu Prasad.

Residents said Bachcha had lobbied for an RJD ticket from the Paroo Assembly constituency in Muzaffarpur district last year but could not get it because of the fewer number of seats allotted to the party due the Grand Alliance understanding.

The college, named after Bachcha Rai's grandfather, an influential person of the area, has a stunning success rate.

This year, a number of top 10 students are from the college.