A 41-year-old assistant drawing teacher of a Chembur school was denied anticipatory bail by a sessions court last week. He had been booked for leaking the question papers of the drawing Grade examination on WhatsApp.
The complaint had been registered against him and another person after the question papers of elementary and intermediate grade examinations which were to be held on 26 September 2019 and 28 September 2019 respectively leaked a few days before these examinations were to be held. As a result, the examinations had to be cancelled.
The question papers were in a sealed condition in the office of the principal of JJ School of Arts. Out of 22 sealed envelopes which were given to the school, it was found that eight had been unsealed and then attempted to be re-sealed. The examination inspector filed an application before the Azad Maidan police station after knowing that the teacher Amit Pore and one Gangadhar Sawant had handled the papers.
In his plea seeking anticipatory bail, Pore said that a third person - Amit Gaonkar was also named in the letter, but the police had not made an FIR against him. Also, he argued that since the examination was cancelled, nobody had benefited from the alleged act.
The court in its order said that the material in the investigation papers is prima facie sufficient to show Pore’s involvement in the commission of the crime. It also noted that the allegations against him are serious in nature as it is alleged that he has made the question papers viral by making use of WhatsApp. Additional Sessions judge Prashant Rajvaidya also stated that though no one benefited from his act, it cannot be lost sight of that the department was constrained to cancel or postpone the examination due to the act of the applicant and others.
