"`Educated in Bihar’ is fast acquiring the stamp of a statutory warning.’’— CID report to the Patna high court, 2001

Cash and carry admissions. Degrees and jobs over the counter. Welcome to Patna, a city that in its own strange way has married the free market to the classroom. The arrests of Ranjit Singh ‘Don’ and three of his accomplices for leaking the question papers for the Common Admission Test — for entry to the Indian Institutes of Management —are only the tip of the iceberg. In India it’s a scandal; In Bihar it’s an everyday story.

At the best — worst? — of times it doesn’t take extraordinary skills to access these rackets. One ‘‘insider’’ The Sunday Express contacted was too busy to speak. He said he was pressed for time, had to leak question papers for a selection test to fill the 40,000 teachers’ vacancies in the state.

The quote at the beginning of this story is from a report filed before the high court by Manoj Nath, IG (CID), Patna. The report was prompted by a case in which Shikha Gupta, wife of senior IPS officer Anurag Gupta, was accused of getting a first class MA degree ‘‘by ... fraud, forgery, deception, and criminal misconduct’’. The bogus degree was later used to get Shika a lecturer’s job at Gaya’s Magadh University.

After making headlines for days, the case has faded away, awaiting trial. Anurag is now SP, Hazaribagh and permission to prosecute him has been sought from the Union government. Three former vice-chancellors — was a former high court judge — and five professors are the Gupta couple’s co-accused.

Roll of dishonour

• In 1996, the CBI charged Brij Bihari Prasad, science and technology minister in the RJD cabinet, with selling seats in Jamshedpur’s Regional Institute of Technology (RIT). Rival gangs shot at him while he was in judicial custody. Prasad, whose wife Rama Devi is a state minister now, was sent to jail. All 300 odd beneficiaries of the scandal are today engineers.. • Former director of the RIT Lakshmi Rai was chairman of the Bihar Public Service Commission when he was implicated in the case and arrested. He was put in judicial custody. Soon after he came out of jail, he was reinstated as chairman of the commission. The case has not concluded yet. • Gulam Sarwar, speaker of the state assembly, appointed around 500 clerks and peons to the assembly. The Patna high court and, later, Supreme Court, scrapped all appointments as illegal. • According to a CID report, an IAS officer of Bihar cadre, posted in Delhi, got a PhD in economics from Magadh University in 1995-96. There was no record at the university of his thesis.

The charge against Shikha Gupta was tha of the eight papers she was supposed to sit, she showed up for only one. The one seven were simply never written.

Wonder why nobody thought of proxy candidates, the simple contrivance of X writing Y’s examination — often in collusion with the invigilator. Proxy candidature is a nice, little cottage industry in Bihar. ‘‘There are medical students who could make upto Rs 50 or 60 lakh by the time they finish the course ... writing exams for others,’’ says a source.

The most common occurrence would be for a medico to sit a younger candidate’s medical entrance exam. But for some the duplicity carries well into the future. ‘‘In just one room I caught five proxy examinees in a recent departmental test,’’ says an invigilator. He confesses he let them off, ‘‘It’s just so prevalent.’’

Ranjit himself began his career as a proxy exam writer. When competition in this market segment became just too hot, Bihari proxy examinees moved to Kolkata and Nagpur, writing papers for candidates there.

Even the nuisance called a photograph on the admission card has been dealt with. A digitally enhanced photograph now morphs the likeness of both the candidate and his proxy. An invigilator faced with hundreds of candidates, can be easily fooled.

Not surprisingly, an interviewer at a bank probationary officers’ screening remembers meeting candidates who could not name the president of India. But they had swept through the written test.

If copycat candidates could be found even 30 years ago, the practice of leaking papers is roughly a decade old, say sources. They boast that every single competitive examination has been compromised in the past decade, with the notable exception of the Andhra Bank probationary officers’ exam. By coincidence or otherwise, most ‘‘paper leak’’ syndicates hail from Nalanda district, including Ranjit’s.

Ranjit stretched the limits of this operation. He made big money and proportionate enemies. His family alleges it was his increasing popularity in Nalanda’s Hilsa and Chandi region that proved his undoing. ‘‘His plans to contest the elections annoyed some politicians,’’ says Ranjit’s uncle Rakesh Kumar Singh.

How did Ranjit do it? He specialised in medical entrance exams, but guaranteed clients admission to a whole host of professional courses, jobs as bank officers and so on.

Caste and provincial networks were exploited to actually get access to the papers. Harinder Chaudhary, one of the four arrested in Delhi a week ago, had been arrested earlier too, in Nalanda in 2002, while leaking question papers for an SBI officers’ exam. When interrogated, he revealed his source as a Bihari employee in the printing press.

As his business grew, Ranjit became a political patron. His vehicles and money were available at election time. In a state with a comatose economy, some speculate the admission racket has become a big source of political funding.

So desperate is the desire to get a job — or just get out of Bihar — that cases of bribes for jobs in the railways, in the telecom department, even the army have been reported. Earlier this year, a CRPF constable and an inspector were arrested — in Nalanda, where else? — after being found collecting Rs 25,000 from candidates for recruitment to the paramilitary force. They named an IG and a DIG as their conspirators but the senior men, true to form, were not chargesheeted. This is not the only such case (see box).

Leaked question papers have become so prevalent that there have been instances of even CBSE/high school toppers approaching syndicates for an early look at professional courses’ question papers. When everybody’s in the game, why take chances?

There have been cases of even high school toppers approaching syndicates for an early look at professional courses’ question papers‘‘If Rs 4 lakh ensures you a medical seat and you have that much money, why not do it?’’ argues a police officers, ‘‘in any case it is an investment. The going dowry for a doctor is over Rs 20 lakh.’’

Mild-mannered and soft spoken, Ranjit was, true to his moniker, quite a don. Even police officers who approached him on behalf of their children were not spared. They had to pay for his ‘‘service’’, unless they could do him other favours. Names of at least one IG and DIG are doing the rounds in Patna.

Ranjit ran a tight ship. Loose words and disloyalty were frowned upon, even punished. The police suspects Ranjit masterminded the murder of his cousin Sanjiv, following a squabble.

Ranjit could, of course, help you get into college; but you still had to pass exam after exam before being awarded a degree. Some years ago, a leading Patna cardiologist got his son admitted to a Mumbai medical college courtesy Ranjit. But the boy failed the course.

This year, many of those who used Ranjit’s ‘‘good offices’’ to clear the CBSE pre-medical test — of the 1,200 successful candidates, over 600 were from Bihar — opted for medical colleges in the state itself. The logic? If you can fix the entrance test, you can fix the college exam too.