After 5 Weeks, Relief For Schoolgirl Ruby Rai, Arrested For Cheating

Patna: After nearly five weeks, Ruby Rai, a Bihar school girl arrested for cheating in her school exams, will finally be allowed to return home. She was controversially arrested by the Bihar police, moved to a juvenile home, and then denied bail twice.

Ms Rai, 18, was granted bail today. The Juvenile Justice Board had ruled that she had committed a serious offense by conspiring with others to emerge as a topper in the Class 12 Humanities exam held earlier this year.

Ms Rai was caught after she spoke in television interviews about learning cooking in Political Science. Like 20 other classmates from her junior college who also placed as toppers, she was clearly faking it. However, none of the others were arrested. Nearly 30 adults, including the principal of her college and education officials from the government, have been jailed.

Ms Rai has said she wanted only to somehow pass her exam and that she had no interest in being designated best-in-class, an initiative allegedly taken by her father, who is accused of bribing a series of officers. Several politicians, including members of the Bihar government, have objected to a schoolgirl being treated at par with the grown-ups who were clearly part of an organized scam in education.

Last year, pictures of adults scaling the walls of an exam centre to pass cheatsheets to students in an exam centre turned into a globe-trotting scandal.

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