Govt allowed treasury director to release exam question papers

With the needle of suspicion pointing at staff of Treasury department in PU question paper leak, it has now emerged that the government had recently granted discretionary powers to the Director of Treasury to release question papers of public examinations from strongrooms.

The government in an order dated December 12, 2015 relaxed article 18(a) of the Karnataka Treasury Code and empowered the Treasury department director to exercise the discretion in handing over question papers kept at strongrooms to the examination-conducting authorities. K P Jyoti is the Director of Treasury department, which comes under the Finance department. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah holds the finance portfolio.

As per the Karnataka Treasury Code, the question papers kept at strongrooms have to be handed over to the examination-conducting authority only one hour before the scheduled time of the examination.

 Prior to the recent order, it was mandatory for the Director to obtain special, case-by-case permission from the government to hand over the question papers in advance. 

And the government used to grant the permission only if any examination-conducting authority had given a requisition, citing difficulty in distributing the paper to colleges located in far-off places from taluk headquarters. 

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) probing the leak, suspects the question paper was leaked from a strongroom of the treasury department. The CID sleuths have arrested Oblaraju, Officer on Special Duty to Medical Education Minister Sharan Prakash Patil, Rudrappa,  office superintendent, PWD, and Manjunath, a physical education teacher in a private college in Vijayanagar, Bengaluru. 

“Pending amendment to article 18(a) of Karnataka Treasury Code, the Treasury Director has been empowered to use discretion to hand over the question papers as per the request by the examination-conducting authorities of SSCL, PU, Union Public Service Commission and other government departments,” the order stated. Misusing power 

Sources in the government said there is a possibility of officials at the taluk and district levels misusing the discretionary powers. Director Jyoti said the department receives requests from examination-conducting authorities for early handing over of question papers in some places every year. The requests used to come a day prior to the examination and, in some cases, there used to be delay in the government granting permission. Hence, the government  recently vested discretionary powers in the Director for handing over the question papers, she added.

“The Treasury is only the custodian of the materials kept by any authority. We are not concerned about the contents of sealed covers kept in the strongrooms. The sealed covers are handed over to the authority concerned on request. This year too I had received some requisitions for early release of question papers in some places and they were granted,” she stated.