Five Higher Secondary examinees will have their registration cancelled as mobile phones were found on them while they were writing their first language paper on the first day of the school-leaving exams on Tuesday.

One of the students is from Howrah and the rest are from Malda.

A student’s registration with the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education stands cancelled if he or she is caught with a cellphone in the examination hall. If caught with a phone at the exam venue but outside the hall, the student will have his or her paper for the day cancelled.

Council officials said the answer scripts and the question papers were taken away from the five candidates and they were made to leave the rooms as soon as the phones were found on them.

“The devices have been seized. The students will not be allowed to write the remaining papers,” an official said.

“All the five cases will be placed before the council’s malpractices committee latest by Wednesday morning. The committee will decide whether their registration will be cancelled permanently or for one or more years,” council president Mahua Das said.

Every student in Class XI of the schools affiliated to the council has to get registered in order to be eligible to write the Plus-II test.

If a registration gets cancelled, the candidate will have to get registered afresh. A student can appear for the HS exams two years after registration.

The council has made it mandatory to deploy three invigilators in every exam hall.

“The sole responsibility of one invigilator in every hall is to find out whether anyone has a cellphone on him or her. The five examinees were caught by these invigilators,” an official said.

Death

An examinee from Faridpur High School in Murshidabad met with a fatal accident on his way to the exam venue.