Bihar toppers scam: CM Nitish takes up challenge to hold exams fairly

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday said that his government has taken it as a challenge to conduct future examinations fairly in view of the topper scam for the second consecutive year but it has "miles to go to plug all loopholes".

A year after state board Arts topper Ruby Rai was arrested, Patna police on Friday nabbed this year's topper in the stream, Ganesh Kumar, on the charge of appearing for the examination on forged documents.

"We have taken the episode (toppers scam for second consecutive year) as a challenge to conduct exams in the future more effectively. We focused on checking question paper leaks and bungling in evaluation process. But wrongdoers find ways somehow," Kumar told reporters here.

"We have miles to go to plug all loopholes and conduct the exam in a free and fair manner. We do not believe in casting a veil on the shortcomings.

"As soon as irregularity regarding the arts topper (Ganesh Kumar) surfaced, I directed officials not to waste time in ordering probe and to lodge an FIR and arrest the wrongdoers involved in the exam racket," he said.

In a re-run of last year's class XII arts topper scam when Ruby Rai had pronounced political science as "prodigal science", which she said, was about cooking, this year's topper Ganesh Kumar struggled to explain the basics of music, one of his subjects.