Odisha CID nabs six for paper leak in teachers’ eligibility exam

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of Odisha police on Wednesday arrested six persons, including a government employee and two office bearers of teachers’ association, in connection with the question paper leak of the Special Odisha Teacher Eligibility Test (OTET)-2025.

The examination, scheduled to be held on 20 July for the in-service primary and upper primary school teachers across the state, was cancelled unexpectedly by the Board of Secondary Education (BSE), Odisha as allegations of a question paper leak flew thick and fast.

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It’s pertinent to note here that OTET is a state-level examination conducted to determine the eligibility of candidates for teaching positions in Classes I to VIII in government, private aided, and private unaided schools. The OTET pass qualification is mandatory for those aspiring to do a teacher job in the State.

The CID swung into action following a complaint lodged by BSE regarding the leak of question papers of Special OTET-2025 examination. A day before the scheduled exam day, hand-written question papers went viral in social media and those were exact replicas of question sets prepared by BSE.

The CID cracked the case after thorough investigation and arrested accused persons Jitan Moharana, Bijay Kumar Mishra, Sanatan Bisoi, Ram jee Prasad Gupta, Ajay Ku Sahoo, and Jayant Ku Rout.

On interrogation of the accused, it was found that Jitan Moharana, data entry operator in the Office of BSE, was the mastermind of the crime as he unlawfully accessed the laptop of Vice President of BSE and obtained the question papers prior to the examination and disseminated the papers to Working President of State Ex-Cadre Teacher Association Bijaya Mishra, Sanatana Bisoi, President of Ex-Cadre Teachers Association of Koraput District., CID said.

Later, they enticed the gullible teachers, who had failed in the last Special OTET examination, and sold out the papers through three brokers identified as Ramjee Prasad Gupta, Ajay Sahoo and Jayant Ku Rout.

On analysis of financial transactions of accused persons, it was detected that they received money against supply of leaked question sets from desperate teachers who wanted to qualify the examination to receive benefits like regularization of the job, increment of pay. The racket spread its network in almost all districts of the State. Further investigation is underway to trace the links of other accused persons and to find out their involvement in this case, CID concluded.