Nandan Nilekani, Vijay P Bhatkar to suggest reforms for conducting of competitive examinations like SSC

After several cases of questions paper leaks, the Supreme Court (SC) has favoured setting up of a three-member high-powered committee comprising Nandan Nilekani, a co-founder of tech giant Infosys, and renowned computer scientist Vijay P Bhatkar to suggest reforms for conducting of competitive examinations fairly by government bodies.

A bench of Justices S A Bobde and Deepak Gupta, which posted the matter for hearing on January 17, asked advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the petitioner, to suggest a name besides Nilekani and Bhatkar for constituting the panel.

SSC CGL, CHSL Results 2017:

Meanwhile, the top court said it would not vacate the stay on the declaration of result of SSC combined graduate level (CGL) and combined higher secondary level (C
HSL) examinations held in 2017, in which lakhs of students had appeared.

High powered committee:

The three-member high powered committee would suggest reforms to the government bodies, which conduct competitive examinations like the SSC, as there are several cases of questions paper leaks.
It also refused to vacate its August 31 last year order staying declaration of results of the SSC examination.

SSC Paper Leak 2017:

On November 13, 2018 the apex court had asked the CBI to submit its final report regarding the probe into the alleged leak of papers of the 2017 Staff Selection Commission (SSC) examination.
The apex court had earlier favoured cancelling the 2017 SSC examination, whose declaration of result was stayed by the court in August, 2018 and holding it afresh by the National Testing Agency or the CBSE "in the interest of students".

It had refused to agree with the Centre's contention that the examination held in February this year got "tainted" due to a technical snag and a fresh examination of one paper had been conducted thereafter.

Petitioner Shantantu Kumar, who had sought cancellation of examination, had said that contract of private company Sify Technologies Pvt Ltd, which had conducted the SSC examination, was now over.

The Centre had termed the allegations of paper leak as "bald and in general" and opposed the contention for scrapping the entire examinations.

On August 31, the apex court had stayed the declaration of result of the SSC CGL and Combined Higher Secondary Level (CHSL) Examination held in 2017, in which lakhs of students had appeared, saying it seemed that the entire test and the system was "tainted".