Nearly six years have passed since hundreds of students in Madhya Pradesh cleared Classes X and XII from the National Institute of Open Schooling without taking their exams, but the Centre is yet to provide details of the action taken to a parliamentary panel.

The Committee on Government Assurances of the Rajya Sabha had treated a reply in the Upper House by then junior human resource development minister Upendra Kushwaha as an assurance to provide details of the action taken. Last month, the committee, headed by AIADMK member M. Thambidurai, asked the education ministry (former HRD ministry) for a detailed report “at the earliest”.

On March 15, 2018, BJP member M.S. Tundiya had asked what action had been taken against the permanent and contractual staff at the Bhopal regional office of the NIOS involved in fraudulently passing students who had skipped the April 2017 board exams.

Kushwaha had in his reply said the matter had been referred to the CBI “to conduct an investigation into the alleged malpractices in examinations of secondary and higher secondary standard conducted by NIOS in exam centres at Sehore, Ratlam and Umaria in the state of Madhya Pradesh. CBI has registered the complaint on 24.10.2017 which is under verification.”

The committee considered the reply to be an assurance since it mentioned the initiation of a CBI inquiry.

On December 2, 2021, the department of school education and literacy under the Union education ministry sent an implementation report to the committee stating that two accused, Ashish Massey and Manoj Jyoti Borah, had been arrested. It said a chargesheet had been filed against them on May 13, 2019, in a CBI court in Bhopal.

Massey was allegedly a middleman between students and NIOS officials, while Borah was a junior NIOS official in Assam.

A report by the parliamentary panel last month said the“implementation report was treated as part fulfilment ofthe assurance as ministry”.

It added: “The committee recommends the ministry to furnish a revised implementation report containing information regarding the pending CBI enquiry against the officials of NIOS and other private individuals and also the enquiry had been completed or not, to fulfil the assurance at the earliest.”

Several hundred students allegedly skipped the exams but the NIOS Bhopal office sent fake answer sheets for evaluation in Assam. On the basis of the fake answer sheets, students were awarded marks and passed.

Separate emails were sent to Sanjay Kumar, secretary, department of school education and literacy, and SarojSharma, NIOS chairperson, asking what action had been taken apart from the arrest of two accused, what corrective action had been taken to check such fraud in future, and why the delay in sending a detailed report to the House panel.

An NIOS spokesperson said the institute had suspended then regional director Bhopal, S.R. Khan, and another staff member, Sudarshan Singh. Besides, three contractual workers, including Borah, have been removed from service. The NIOS has started taking online attendance of candidates and reduced human intervention in the distribution of answer books.