After reports of the leak surfaced on March 28, the CBSE had announced it will re-conduct the examination on April 25.
Then, there were also reports of the CBSE's Class 10 mathematics paper being leaked, but the board decided against a re-test of the Class 10 paper, saying the examination was "largely an internal segment" of the school education system.
"The candidates will appear (for the exam) from the same allotted centres using the same admit card," a board official said on Tuesday.
For conducting the re-test of the economics paper, the board had said "Class 12 exams are a gateway to higher education and various professional competitive exams which have limited seats... Therefore, giving undue advantage to a handful of beneficiaries of the alleged leak of the economics paper would not be in larger interest of the students."
Earlier this month, the CBSE had said it found no impact of the Class 10 mathematics paper leak after an assessment.
The reports of leak of the CBSE papers had caused disappointment among students across the country last month.
In Delhi, students held protests, accusing the CBSE of negligence and demanded immediate action against the guilty. Investigators made arrests in several parts of the country in connection with the case, including in Jharkhand and Himachal Pradesh.
They claimed to have arrested the main conspirators behind the leak from Una town in Himachal Pradesh. The three people were staffers at a school in the town.
The Class 12 economics paper was leaked on March 23 - three days before the scheduled date, according to Delhi Police.
The leak was exposed after an envelope containing four images of the hand-written economics paper was delivered to the CBSE Headquarters in Delhi on the evening of the scheduled date of examination - March 26.
Following the leak reports, on April 2 CBSE tried a "leak-proof" system of "encrypted" question papers, which delayed the exam as a few centres in Delhi were unable to follow the printing of encrypted papers, e-mailed to them, at the school itself.
The HRD ministry then set up a committee to examine the process by which the CBSE conducts examinations. The seven-member panel, headed by former HRD secretary Vinay Sheel Oberoi, will suggest measures to make the process "secure and fool-proof" using technology.
The committee has to submit its report by May 31 to the Human Resource Development Ministry.
[With PTI Inputs]
At the request of the state government in view of bandh called by several Dalit organisations against the alleged dilution of the SCs/STs (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) had postponed the exams scheduled on April 2.
It has been decided to conduct the cancelled examination in Punjab on April 27. The roll numbers and examination centres already allotted to the students will remain the same, said K K Chaudhury, Controller of Examinations, CBSE.
While Class 12 students were supposed to appear for the Hindi exam, language exams of French, Sanskrit and Urdu were scheduled for Class 10 on that day.
The board had then said that it had received a letter of request, dated April 1, from the director general (school education) of the Punjab government to postpone all its examinations scheduled to be held on April 2, on account of apprehensions of law and order problems and other disturbances in the day during the 'Bharat bandh'.
The Punjab government had also taken a decision to keep all schools shut for the day, the CBSE had said referring to the former's letter.
[With PTI Inputs]
In a letter to Javadekar, Tharoor said the class 12 students are already in the process of preparing for competitive examinations and are under considerable stress and anxiety, and should be exempted from taking the exam again.
The HRD Ministry had last week announced that a re-examination of the CBSE Class 12 economics paper would be held on April 25 following the leak of the paper.
It had said the Class 10 mathematics re-test, if required, would be conducted only for the Delhi-NCR region and Haryana in July. However, on Tuesday it decided against conducting the re-test for the mathematics paper.
"I would request you to kindly consider a similar exemption of Class 12 students from the re-examination of the Economics paper on compassionate grounds," Tharoor said in his letter.
Tharoor, who is a former Minister of State for Human Resource Development, urged Javadekar to hold a time-bound thorough inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the papers leak so as to ensure that appropriate punitive measures are taken at the earliest against those who are identified as being responsible for it.
"Most significantly, it will also allow us to take urgent constructive corrective steps that will be crucial in ensuring that the credibility of these examinations is reinstated," he said.
Tharoor said that for the students to be subjected to this kind of uncertainty and additional burden of re-examination due to a few miscreants, was "grossly unfair and it is therefore the duty of the government to ensure that remedial steps are taken at the earliest".
The Congress MP said many of the students have already begun preparations for subsequent competitive examinations such as NEET, scheduled on May 6, and JEE, scheduled on April 15 and 16.
"For them to be required to prepare for a paper that they have worked hard for previously, would not only be unfair to them but would in fact, be antithetical to the fundamental idea of our education system, which is that hard work and merit is always rewarded in our country," Tharoor said.
"Given the time sensitive nature of this issue and the distress that it is causing lakhs of students across the country, I would be grateful if you could give this request your most urgent and sympathetic consideration," he urged Javadekar.
With PTI Inputs
This decision holds good even for test-takers in Delhi-NCR and Haryana, the two regions where the leak reportedly took place, Times of India reported.
The CBSE and HRD ministry officials believe that the leak will not have any impact on the overall result of the Class 10. So, it better not to hold any re-exam, TOI reported, citing a source from the board.
"If a student has done poorly in internal assessment and does exceptionally well in the main paper and this is at variance with his other papers — then we might examine the result more carefully," said the source to TOI.
However, the re-examination for Class 12 economics paper will take place on April 25.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court will hear on Wednesday a batch of petitions challenging the board’s decision to re-conduct the Mathematics exams for Class 10 after its question paper was leaked on March 28.
Breaking Now: After SSC CGL & CBSE, FCI exam paper leaked
The bench headed by the Chief Justice Dipak Misra on Monday decided to take up the matter after it was mentioned for an urgent hearing.
Besides challenging the re-conduct of the exam, the petitioners have sought a probe into the leak and declaration of results on the basis of exams already conducted.
Swarup informed that the Class 12 Economics exam will be on conducted on April 25 across the country.
Regarding Class 10 re-examination, he said that the leak was restricted to Delhi and Haryana and if at all a re-exam happens, it will happen only in Delhi and Haryana, only.
Besides, a decision will be taken in next 15 days in this regard, said Swarup, adding, "If at all re-exam is done, it will be in July."
"We are seeing the entire process as to where the leak happen. We will nail the person who did this," he said.
Meanwhile, six students were detained today in connection with the CBSE papers leak.
The CBSE papers leak has drawn widespread criticism from across the country and triggered students' protest.
The activists of BCJD criticised the decision of CBSE to conduct re-examination of Mathematics paper of Class 10 and Economics paper of Class 12 as the question papers of both the subjects were leaked 30 minutes before the commencement of the examinations.
They also said that re-examination of the papers should be conducted only in New Delhi as the leak was confined to the national capital only.
"Why is Prime Minister Narendra Modi silent at a time when the future of lakhs of students is at stake? He should take responsibility and answer. We demand resignation of the concerned minister for his incompetency," said BCJD president, Rana Pratap Patra.
The government must announce a high-level probe into the leak to bring the culprits to book, Patra added.
Guardians' association also condemned the re-examination decision of the CBSE.
"It's an injustice to the students. Why should 30-40 lakh students across the country suffer because of paper leak in Delhi?" president of the association, Sudarshan Das said.
CBSE students across the country are disappointed. The exam conducting authority, CBSE, has once again pushed them into a state of helplessness.
Meanwhile, the Board on Wednesday announced to re-conduct the Class 10 Mathematics and Class 12 Economics exam due to leak of the question papers of those subjects around 40 minutes before the start of the exam.
However, students in Delhi are on massive protests at Jantar Mantar demanding the re-examination for all papers instead of just the two announced yesterday.
They allege that almost all the papers have been leaked, besides Mathematics and Economics. They have also reportedly threatened to sit on dharna till CBSE announce re-examination of all the exam papers.
Union minister Prakash Javadekar on Wednesday on said 2-3 papers had been leaked on WhatsApp 30 minutes before the exams and a special investigation team is probing the matter.
On the other hand, students from other parts of the country like Bengaluru, Guwahati, Chennai, Kolkata, Patna and Bhopal among others are upset with the re-exam decision of the Board.
They question that why should they be forced to appear the exam again when the leak was limited to New Delhi.
It’s still not clear what the CBSE will decide at the end of the day but it has again put the future of the students at stake with such lapses in conducting the exams.
The bench headed by the Chief Justice Dipak Misra on Monday decided to take up the matter after it was mentioned for an urgent hearing.
Besides challenging the re-conduct of the exam, the petitioners have sought a probe into the leak and declaration of results on the basis of exams already conducted.
The government on March 30 announced that re-examination will be held for Class 12 Economics paper throughout the country on April 25 while fresh test for Class 10 Mathematics paper will be held only in Delhi, NCR and Haryana in July.
As per the release of the Board, a fake information regarding the re-conduct of examination of subject Physics and Economics of Class XII is being circulated on whatsapp.
"The date of this information is 28.03.2019 which has been signed by Sh. K K Choudhury, former Controller of Examinations. This is brought to the notice of Stakeholders that the news of re-conduct of Physics and Economics of Class XII is fake," the Board clarified.
CBSE further urged all the stakeholders and public not to give any heed to the rumours like the above said one and cooperate with the CBSE in the smooth and fair conduct of examinations.
The Board has taken multiple steps towards maintaining security of question papers this year. Besides, CBSE reintroduced the multiple sets of question paper and added many new questions apart from making different sets.
Moreover, CBSE recently shared some video links being uploaded on YouTube by some unscrupulous elements stating that Social Science papers have been leaked. BUT THEY ARE ALL FAKE AND NO PAPER HAS BEEN LEAKED, the Board clarified.