Calcutta High Court directs CBI to retrieve TET 2014 OMR sheets

Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court on Friday directed the CBI to diligently trace and retrieve the original or destroyed servers, discs, or mediums where the scanned OMR sheets of the Teachers' Eligibility Test (TET) for 2014 were stored.

The court also instructed the CBI to seek assistance from expert public or private organisations such as NIC, WIPRO, TCS, INFOSYS, etc., to determine whether the existing servers, hard discs, and computers belonging to M/s. S Basu Roy and Co, to which some work for the TET examination process was allegedly outsourced, and/or the West Bengal Board of Primary Education (WBBPE) contain any digital traces of the scanned original OMR sheets from TET 2014.

Hearing a bunch of petitions alleging irregularities in TET 2014, Justice Rajasekhar Mantha directed the CBI to trace and retrieve with due intensity the location of the original/destroyed servers/discs/medium where the scanned OMR sheets were stored.

The court said this can be achieved through further interrogation of the officials of M/s. S. Basu Roy and Co. as well as any official or employee of WBBPE.

The court highlighted the need for software and IT experts to address additional questions, directing the CBI to engage organizations like NIC, WIPRO, TCS, INFOSYS, etc., to ascertain answers regarding the existence of digital footprints related to the OMR sheets.

The court observed that once a digital footprint is created, the same can always be retrieved. The court mandated that the costs incurred by these expert agencies would be borne by WBBPE upon demand by the CBI.

Justice Mantha further instructed that these experts should report to the CBI and subsequently to the court whether the original data extracted from the OMR sheets underwent any manipulation or alteration, including details of dates and nature of such changes.

The court directed that the matter will come up for hearing again on August 23.

According to the CBI, chartered accountant firm S Basu Roy and Co was allegedly outsourced work related to recruitment of teachers by the primary education board and had taken on the role of data processing and computer consultancy, including examination processing and software preparation and marketing. PTI AMR MNB