SSC examination scam: India’s biggest SSC exam Scam

“Thousands of aspirants continued their protests for the third day at the Staff Selection Commission (SSC) headquarters at Lodhi Road in New Delhi. The candidates are demanding a CBI inquiry into the SSC exam scam for government jobs. This issue is related to their future. Students are alleging that mass cheating occurred during this year’s SSC exams and said the question paper was leaked which are conducted to employ non-gazetted staff for various ministries. SSC CGL Tier II Exam 2018 was held on February 21.

The SSC conducts exams to employ non-gazetted staff for various central ministries and subordinate departments. Every year, lakhs of aspirants sit for the various exams held by the commission in the hope of securing a stable government job. Some of the posts for which exams are conducted include lower division clerks, stenographers of the Central Secretariat Stenographers Service and equivalent grades of the Indian Foreign Service, central excise inspectors, income tax inspectors, and sub-inspectors in the CBI and central police organizations.

This year, 1, 89,843 candidates appeared for nearly 9,372 vacancies to be filled under the SSC CGL Tier II exam that was held between February 17 and February 22. While the exams in 206 centers were conducted without any incident, in Delhi, the SSC canceled the second shift of the exam on February 17 at an exam center called Animate Infotech.

Subsequently, the SSC also canceled the exam held in the morning shift on February 21 after screenshots of the question paper along with answers were found circulating on social media. The SSC has announced that this exam will be re-conducted on March 9, but the candidates are alleging ‘mass cheating’ and want nothing short of a CBI inquiry.

When and Why did SSC Scam Start?

The examinations were held for the Complete Graduation Level (CGL) aspirants between 17 to 21 February. On 21st of February 2018, SSC announced an Official Notice apologizing for the technical failure which caused the delay of Quantitative Aptitude Exam. SSC Exam was supposed to take place on 21st February 2018 but due to this technical failure, SSC had to cancel the exam. The Commission after consulting with all the regional offices decided to re-conduct the Quantitative Exam on 9th March 2018.

What are the Immediate Demands of SSC Scam Protesters?

• Change the Vendor: There are many instances where SSC itself declared that due to technical issues this/that problem occurred. Sometimes even marked answers get unmarked and prefilled answers in some centers.
• CBI Inquiry: It is most important to know the root cause and people involved in this scam. As per the current method, only small fishes are getting caught, but we want whales.
• Normalisation: Students want normalization in all SSC Exams if the exam has to be conducted in multiple days/shifts.
• Reserve List: From past many years it is seen that many candidates do not join the department and the seat remains vacant. They demand that SSC should also create a reserve list, in case the candidate fails to join a department.
• Representation List: In each of the exams conducted by SSC there are many wrong answers and SSC Official Answer Keys. SSC Charges Rs. 100 to challenge the SSC Key. They want that if the challenge is correct then Rs. 100 should be refunded back to them.
• Descriptive Paper: They want the descriptive paper to be of qualifying nature as the evaluation involves human calculation so it can be biased.