New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha on Thursday alleged that the Congress had failed to uphold accountability in the 2016 Karnataka Class 12 Chemistry paper leak case.
He claimed that the then Minister’s office was directly linked to the scandal.
Chadha backed the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Amendment Bill, 2026, in Rajya Sabha.
Participating in the debate in the Rajya Sabha, Chadha has described the 2016 Karnataka incident as one of the “most damning” examples of examination malpractice, alleging that the leak originated from within the office of the then Medical Education Minister Sharan Patil.
“The most damning paper leak story in this entire debate is about a Congress Minister whose own office was leaking exam papers. In 2016, in Karnataka, the Class 12 Chemistry paper was leaked. The re-exam paper was also leaked. The exam had to be cancelled twice. Leak double, trauma triple,” Chadha said during his speech.
He shared the video clip of this part of the speech on social media platform X on Friday.
Recounting the sequence of events, Chadha said the Class 12 Pre-University Chemistry examination paper was first leaked, forcing authorities to cancel the examination.
According to the BJP Rajya Sabha MP, a fresh examination conducted about 20 days later also suffered the same fate after the question paper allegedly began circulating on WhatsApp in the early hours of the morning, leading to yet another cancellation.
He also alleged that the Karnataka Criminal Investigation Department (CID) investigation into the case resulted in the arrest of three persons, including the personal assistant (PA) of the then Medical Education Minister Sharan Patil.
“The State CID investigated and arrested three people, in which the PA of the Karnataka government’s Medical Education Minister Sharan Patil himself was involved. The PA was leaking the paper by taking Rs 10-11 lakh,” Chadha alleged.
Questioning the Minister’s accountability, the BJP Rajya Sabha MP said, “When the Minister was asked why he didn’t resign—it was his moral and direct responsibility, his PA in his office was leaking the paper—he said, ‘There is no question of resigning. If something wrong has happened, it is my PA’s personal matter.'”
Targeting the Congress, Chadha added, “See the irony, today in 2026, there is again a Congress government in Karnataka and Sharan Patil is again a Minister, and he is the Minister of the same department. This is the standard of accountability.”
Chadha made the remarks while supporting the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Amendment Bill, 2026, which was passed by Rajya Sabha on Thursday.
The Bill had already been cleared by Lok Sabha.
The Bill aims to strengthen the legal framework against paper leaks through stringent penalties, time-bound investigations and fast-track trials.
Chadha added that examination leaks should be treated as organised crime involving insiders, logistics operators, printing presses, coaching mafias and solver gangs, rather than isolated incidents, and said the proposed law would help safeguard the credibility of public examination.
(IANS)
