Scam in Rajasthan pre-medical test for third time

The scam was unearthed Tuesday when Chetan, a student, was arrested after it was found that he hired a man named Vikram for Rs.400,000 to appear in the written test in his place.

When Chetan turned up for counselling for successful candidates, his thumb print and photograph did not match with those taken before the entrance test.

"During the written test, we take fingerprints of each student. We match them with fingerprints taken during counselling. Fingerprints of at least 40 students don't match," a Rajasthan University of Health Sciences official told IANS.

He added that it is possible that like Chetan they also hired professionals for impersonating them during the exam.

"We will conduct fresh counselling for these 40 students. If it is found that they also cleared the exam with help of impostors, legal action will be taken against them," the official added. He did not rule out involvement of university staff in the racket.

"The modus-operandi is same each year. During interrogation of impostor Vikram, it came up that he had taken coaching classes from an institute in Kota known for pre-medical and engineering test studies," a police officer said.

This is not for the first time that such irregularities have been found in this prestigious test required to pursue MBBS. Since 2009, many such cases of impersonation have come to the fore.

In April, the Rajasthan High Court had ordered First Information Reports (FIRs) against 16 candidates who had sought admission in the state's medical colleges by impersonating themselves in the Rajasthan pre-medical test examination in 2009.

Ironically, these students had cleared the counselling also. The scam was exposed when some students who had failed in the test by a slight margin in the merit list approached the court alleging that a large number of students succeeded by engaging professionals to attend entrance examination.

Police sources said a big racket is active for the past three years. In 2010 also, some students came under the scanner.