Essay: Scams and corruption

Now days it has become very common to hear the terms mentioned above. In India only we see a number a number of cases of scams, corruption and cheatings. And the worst part is that most of these things are done by the people who have the responsibility to prevent these events. They are very harmful to the country’s economy.
Let’s have a look at the literal meaning of such terms.
SCAM:-A fraudulent scheme performed by a dishonest individual, group, or company in an attempt obtains money or something else of value. Scams traditionally resided in confidence tricks, where an individual would misrepresent themselves as someone with skill or authority, i.e. a doctor, lawyer, investor. After the internet became widely used, new forms of scams emerged such as lottery scams; scam baiting, email spoofing, phishing, or request for helps. These are considered to be email fraud. Example:- Adders Housing Society Scam, Bellary mining Scam, Bhansali Scam, Boors Scam, Cash for votes Scam.
CORRUPTION: -In general, corruption is a form of dishonesty or criminal activity undertaken by a person or organization entrusted with a position of authority, often to acquire illicit benefit. Corruption may include many activities including bribery and embezzlement, though it may also involve practices that are legal in many countries. Political corruption occurs when an office-holder or other governmental employee acts in an official capacity for personal gain. Corruption is most commonplace in kleptocracies, oligarchies, nacre-states and mafia states.
• Punishment for Corruption
• Corruption is a serious offence!
• A person convicted on a corruption offence shall be liable to a fine not exceeding $100,000/- or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 5 years, or both, for each count of corruption.
• If it is proven that any matter or transaction is in relation to contract or a proposal for a contract with the government, the punishment would be a fine of $100,000 or imprisonment not exceeding 7 years or to both, for each count of corruption.
Consequences of Corruption
• Corruption has serious repercussions. If allowed to take root in society, it can lead to a breakdown in social order and lives are affected when ordinary people are prevented from receiving all the essential services that they are entitled to.
• It creates unfair competition and increases the cost of doing business. Every form of it is bad for economic growth and the reputation of an entire country can be tarnished. CHEATING IN EXAM:-
Cheating in Exams. Cheating involves actual, intended, or attempted deception and/or dishonest action in relation to any academic work of the University. The University operates a zero tolerance policy in relation to cheating in examinations. People use various mechanisms to cheat like using digital watches, looking into other people’s paper, mobile phones, etc.
Many a times people involved in the education system also aid in cheating to their relatives or at the pretense of money. There are various reasons why students cheat as they are fed with wrong ideas about success, peer pressure, fear of getting less marks, lack of fear for the authority. Etc. At Universities also cheating is a common practice. It is often accompanied by violence. Students carry pistols or knives with them and cheat openly. They scare the invigilator away by terrorizing him with the gun.
• There is mass copying at times and such cases are dealt with, very severely. Police protection is sometimes provided to the invigilators.
• Cheating greatly mars the sanctity of the examination. The exam is really a good means of evaluating one’s knowledge of all that is taught and it is in fact a good thing for students.
• This is something students realize later in their lives. But while they are still students, they continue to adopt such unfair means of passing the examination and bring a great deal of harm to their school and most of all to themselves.
SCAMS
Types of Scams:
• Attempts to gain personal information:
Scammers use all kinds of sneaky approaches to steal your personal details.
Once obtained, they can use your identity to commit fraudulent activities such as using your credit card or opening a bank account.
• Buying or Selling:
Scammers prey on consumers and businesses that are buying or selling products and services. Not every transaction is legitimate.
• Dating and Romance:
Scammers take advantage of people looking for romantic partners, often via dating websites, apps or social media by pretending to be prospective companions. They play on emotional triggers to get you to provide money, gifts or personal details.
• Fake Charities:
Scammers impersonate genuine charities and ask for donations or contact you claiming to collect money after natural disasters or major events.
• Investments:
If you are looking for a fast way to make money, watch out – scammers have invented all sorts of fake money-making opportunities to prey on your enthusiasm and get hold of your cash.
• Jobs &Employment:
Jobs and employment scams trick you into handing over your money by offering you a ‘guaranteed’ way to make fast money or a high-paying job for little effort.
• Threats &Extortion:
Scammers will use any means possible to steal your identity or your money – including threatening your life or ‘hijacking’ your computer.
• Unexpected Money:
Scammers invent convincing and seemingly legitimate reasons to give you false hope about offers of money. There are no get-rich-quick schemes, so always think twice before handing over your details or dollars.
• Unexpected Winnings:
Don’t be lured by a surprise win. These scams try to trick you into giving money upfront or your personal information in order to receive a prize from a lottery or competition that you never entered.
Smart Tactics to Scam People:
• YampaScam:
Yampa scam was an entrance examination, admission and recruitment scam that were unearthed in the Indian state of MadhyaPradesh in 2013.
It involved seamstress including politicians, senior and junior officials and businessmen systematically employing imposters to write papers, manipulate exam hall seating arrangements and supply forged answer sheets by bribing officials.
The scam involved 13 different exams conducted by Yampa, for selection of medical students and state government employees (including food inspectors, transport constables, police personnel, school teachers, dairy supply officers and forest guards) where the final results were rigged.
The exams were taken by around 3.2 million students each year, many of whom were actually paid proxies for other undeserving students.
It also included an “engine-bogie” system wherein seating arrangements were manipulated so that a paid smarter student was seated between two others to allow the latter to copy answers from the former.
Yampa was entrusted with the responsibility of conducting large-scale competitive exams for admission to various professional courses and for recruitment to government jobs.
The Yampa scam involved collusion among exam candidates, government officials and middlemen: undeserving candidates were offered high marks in the exams, in exchange for kickbacks.
The following tricks were used by those involved in the scam:
• Impersonation
Brilliant students or practicing doctors would be paid to impersonate exam candidates. The photograph on the candidate’s admitting card was replaced by the impersonator’s photograph. After the exam, it was changed back to the original. This was done in collusion with the corrupt board officials.
• Copying
Undeserving candidates bribed the board officials through middlemen to be seated strategically next to a brilliant dummy candidate, who was also paid money. The dummy candidate let them copy from his sheet or exchanged the sheet at the end of the exam.
• Manipulation of records and answer sheets
The undeserving candidates would leave their OMR answer sheets blank or fill in only the answers they were sure about. The corrupt board officials would manipulate records to give these candidates randomly high percentages. To avoid being caught in case of an audit, they would file an RTI request demanding to view these answer sheets, and fill in the answers according to the marks.
• Leaking the answer key
The corrupt board officials leaked the answer key to the selected candidate as.
• Investigations:
Initial investigations into the irregularities were conducted by the various city units of the state police. During 2009-2011, a committee established by the state government and headed by the State Joint Director of Medical Education, probed the irregularities in the PMT exam.
After the role of organized crime rackets and politicians in the scam came to light, the state government formed a Special Task Force of the police on 26 August 2013, to investigate the scam. Several activists and politicians, including members of the major opposition INC party, demanded a CBI probe in the scam under the supervision of the SC of India.
Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, Shiraz Singh couchant did not entertain the suggestion of a CBI inquiry to the probe initially. On November 5th, 2014, Madhya Pradesh High Court also rejected the Congress leader Deegvijay Singh’s petition for CBI probe and instead ordered setting up of a special investigation team to act as a watchdog for the court.
The SIT is a three-member team chaired by Justice ChancresBhutan, a retired Judge of the Madhya Pradesh High Court. During 2014-15, the scam was in the supervision of SIT.
Key Arrests:
By June 2015, more than 2000 people had been arrested in connection with the scam.
Politicians and bureaucrats:
• Laxmikant Sharma, ex-Education Minister (M.P)
BJP leader Laxmikant Sharma was the in charge of MPPEB in his capacity as the state’s Technical Education Minister. He was initially arrested for his involvement in the contractual teachers recruitment scam, based on the info recovered from the Excel sheet maintained by Nit inMahindra.
Later, he was also booked for irregularities in the constable’s recruitment examinations; according to the STF, he recommended names of at least 16 candidates for recruitment as constables. He resigned from BJP in June 2014, after being sent to four days police remand. Sharma claimed innocence, placing the blame on his officer OP Shula, and pointed out that his own daughter had failed PMT twice.
• O. P. Shula
He was posted as Officer on Special Duty with then Technical Education Minister Laxmikant Sharma. Soon after the investigations gained momentum, he went underground and surrendered three months after the investigation team released a look out notice for him. He allegedly tookb84 lakhs Rupees from the candidates for clearing the medical entrance test.
• Sushi Sharma
A mining businessman, Sushi Sharma was once an Officer on Special Duty of the education minister Laxmikant Sharma. He was involved in police constable recruitment examination scam of 2012. After absconding initially, he surrendered to the STF in December 2013.The STF questioned him twice, but did not arrest him. After STF found prosecutable evidence against him, he again went missing. The STF announced a cash reward of rupees 5000 for information on him. He surrendered before the court in 2014, and was arrested by the STF.
During 2010-13, Sharma had provided payoffs to many politicians and bureaucrats, including former Madhya Pradesh BJP chief RabatJohan and his sons, Congress MLA Veer Singh Burial, several ABVP leaders, RSS functionary Suresh Sony, and many civil servants. Laxmikant Sharma was the biggest beneficiary of his kickbacks. He also received large sums of money from educational institutes regularly.
• R. K. Shivhare, Suspended IPS Officer
He is an accused for his alleged involvement in the recruitment of sub-inspector and platoon commander examination of 2012 conducted by Yampa. He is also an accused in getting his daughter and son-in-law admitted in the medical college by fraudulent means. When the probe agency registered a case against him, he was suspended but evaded arrest. He was declared absconder and a reward or Rest. 3000 was put against him. He later surrendered on April 20, 2014.
•RadiantDived, Suspended Joint Commissioner (Revenue)
He was arrested for getting his son admitted into one of the premiere medical colleges through unfair means.
SSC SCAM
What is SSC scam?
To understand the ‘scam’, we first need to know what the SSC is and what its functions are –
To the uninitiated, the Staff Selection Commission is an autonomous body falling under the Department of Personal and Training that is tasked with conducting examinations for the recruitment of non-gazetted staff to Group ‘ C ’ (Class III) and Group ‘ B ’ posts in a no of central government ministries and departments as well as subordinate offices.
The SSC was established on 4th November 1975. It was first established as the Sub-ordinate Services Commission and was later renamed the Staff Selection Commission on 26th September 1977. The commission constitutes a chairperson (As himKhorana), 2 members, and a secretary-cum-controller of exams.
Among the posts the aspirants take the SSC exam for are lower division clerks, stenographers, central excise inspectors, income tax inspectors, and sub-inspectors working for the CBI and central police organisations.
While it conducts a no of exams, the most significant one, which attracts the max no. of aspirants as well, examination.
What Is the ‘Scam’ All About?
The SSC ‘scam’, which has come to the spotlight in the last few days, pertains to the Tier II CGL exam , which was held across the country from 17th Feb to 22 Feb, with 1,89,843 aspirants appearing to fill 9,372 vacancies.
Barring the cancellation of the second shift of the exam on 17th February at the Animate InfoTech Centre in Delhi owing to an attempt to disrupt it by “some unruly elements,” the examination seemed to have been conducted smoothly.
However, on 21st February, several irregularities were reported in centres across the country — starting with technical glitches which delayed the examination for the 33,075 candidates who were appearing for it (on the day).
Following this, it was alleged that screenshots of question papers and answers were doing the rounds on social media, while it was underway.
Key Arrests:
In a joint operation with the UP Special Task Force, the Delhi Police on Wednesday busted a gang of men who used to solve the Staff Selection Commission exam, charge anything from Rest 3 to Rest 10 lakh from candidates.
JainNarwhal, Deputy Commissioner of Police said, “We have arrested four men — Ajay Jaywalk, Son Singh, Aura and Parameter. Two other persons — Carpal and Anna — are absconding. We have recovered cash worth Rest 51 lakh, three laptops, 10 mobile phones and other devices used to solve exam papers.”
The gang was running more than 10 examination centres where candidates would cheat using the Team Viewer software.
“The accused would gain access to the computer systems of the candidates who paid money. The solver would then answer all the questions using the software. When the Team Viewer software could not be used, they would take control of the computer by fixing the land connections with that of another computer in the exam centre and answer all the questions,” said a senior police officer, privy to the investigation.
The officer added Carpal and Son were the main gang leaders. The two accused were in partnership as Carpal would provide the necessary infrastructure while Son would help in getting candidates.
The Special Staff of the Delhi Police North district said the gang members were arrested after the cops had raided a building in Timarpur area in North Delhi on Tuesday.
Police said they will go through the mobile phones to ascertain the number of candidates who had cheated in the exams. Police said the candidate’s number may shoot up to “several hundred”. “We have their What Sapp screenshots, call details and other crucial evidence,” said a police officer.
According to police, the gang started operating in 2011. “The members had made their initial forays into the cheating gang by setting up dummy candidates in written exams. Later, when the online exam format had begun, the gang members thought of using Team Viewer software and also examination centres,” police said.
The UP STF had got inputs about Son’s involvement in the gang and mounted surveillance on him for fifteen days.
“We wanted evidence against Son before the raid. So we waited for him to make his move. Our officers caught him when he was helping a candidate solve his paper through Team Viewer. The Delhi Police was then informed about the raid,” said a senior police investigator.
Police have said the gang’s main base of operations was in Delhi.
However, police have also managed to trace their activities in other States. “One of the accused, Aura, had visited SSC exam,” added the officer.