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By:

Anuradha Rao

3 March 2025 at 3:48:19 pm

A Protest Needs an Outcome

The protests at Jantar Mantar have brought together students, activists and political leaders over the NEET paper leak. Actors and filmmakers have offered support, the latest being Salman Khan (the actor, not the educator). The anger is understandable. An examination on which millions stake years of preparation cannot become a commodity available to those with money, influence or access. But what, precisely, must the protest achieve? “Improve education” cannot be its demand. It is a worthy...

A Protest Needs an Outcome

The protests at Jantar Mantar have brought together students, activists and political leaders over the NEET paper leak. Actors and filmmakers have offered support, the latest being Salman Khan (the actor, not the educator). The anger is understandable. An examination on which millions stake years of preparation cannot become a commodity available to those with money, influence or access. But what, precisely, must the protest achieve? “Improve education” cannot be its demand. It is a worthy aspiration, but too vast to negotiate. Education encompasses teachers, curricula, examinations, infrastructure, regulation, funding and access. No government can say when it has “improved education” enough and no protester can establish when that promise has been fulfilled. Even India’s Independence movement, despite its enormous moral canvas, had an unambiguous objective: freedom from British rule. The movements within that struggle were more specific. The Salt March challenged the salt laws. Non-Cooperation sought withdrawal from institutions sustaining colonial authority. Restoring Integrity The larger cause at Jantar Mantar may be the state of Indian education. But the subject of this protest is the integrity of public examinations. The state invited students to compete and promised that their performance - and not money or privileged access - would determine the result. A paper leak breaches that promise. The immediate demand must therefore be an examination system whose integrity can be independently established. The government’s defence is that it acted by arresting the alleged perpetrators and holding a re-examination. But these necessary actions hardly indicate that the system has changed. Every paper leak follows a familiar script of outrage, arrests, investigations, re-examinations and solemn assurances. But accountability seldom travels beyond the immediate culprits to those who designed, supervised and were entrusted with safeguarding the examination system. Arrests merely acknowledge that the crime has already been committed. Re-examinations compel honest students to pay a second time with their time, money and mental anguish for the state’s failure. The consequences extend beyond examination security. A leak tells students that effort may not produce opportunity. It tells parents that years of sacrifice can be defeated by money and access. For students without wealth, connections or a private route into higher education, a fair examination may be the only counterweight to inherited privilege. This is why the relative absence of educators from the public conversation is striking. Students, activists, politicians and celebrities are visible. But where are the collective voices of teachers, principals, educators, university leaders and educational institutions? Perhaps they are speaking and are not being reported. That is revealing in itself: a celebrity’s support is considered news while an educator’s judgement is not. But if educators are largely silent, their absence is more troubling. Teachers ask students to believe that preparation matters. Principals defend the credibility of the institutions they lead. Universities admit students on the assurance that examinations distinguish merit fairly. When that assurance collapses, educators cannot remain sympathetic spectators. Celebrities can amplify anger and politicians can convert it into pressure. Educators must explain what has been broken and help define the repair. Silence is not neutrality when the credibility of one’s profession is being contested. Restoring Confidence Identifying those responsible for the leak is only one part of the state’s response. Restoring confidence in the examination system is the responsibility of the Ministry of Education. It must bring students, teachers, principals, assessment experts, universities and parents into a structured dialogue - not merely to record their grievances, but to define the safeguards and accountability required before the next national examination. That process must be led by the person at the helm of education. An Education Minister must see a breach of the social contract between the state and the student. Political will is visible not only in policies and budgets, but also in whom a government chooses to lead a department. External Affairs, Home, Defence and Finance are led by figures whose political weight is evident. We may disagree with them, but we do not doubt the importance assigned to their portfolios. India’s history with education presents a different pattern. Most education ministers since Independence have come from political, legal or administrative careers; only a handful possessed substantial experience in education or academic policy. This does not mean that only educationists can lead the ministry. It means education has too often been treated as a department to administer rather than a complex system requiring domain-informed leadership and sustained political ownership. The question is therefore larger than whether Dharmendra Pradhan resigns. If he understands the leak as an institutional failure, he must demonstrate it through public ownership and measurable reform. If he sees it merely as a crime for investigators to solve, the demand for his removal becomes a demand for someone capable of recognising what has actually been broken. A resignation may establish that failure carries a political cost. It cannot be the only outcome. Changing the minister without changing the system would be one more transaction. The government need not create another institution or promise to transform education overnight. It must take two immediate actions. First, commission an independent, time-bound audit of the examination chain and publish where it failed, who was responsible and what action followed. Second, require the Education Ministry to place an examination-integrity framework before Parliament ahead of the next national examination, followed by a public report after every major examination detailing breaches, complaints, action taken and vulnerabilities that remain. One establishes the truth about what happened. The other prevents accountability from disappearing when the protest ends. The students at Jantar Mantar have already transformed private anxiety into organised pressure. Their protest cannot transform Indian education in its entirety. But it can compel the state to restore one foundational promise: when it asks a student to compete, it will guarantee an honest competition. That is specific enough to win and significant enough to begin changing everything around it. (The writer is a learning and development professional. Views personal)

India waits to lasso diamantaire Mehul Choksi

Mumbai: India rubbed its hands gleefully as the Belgium Police honoured its request to arrest the absconder diamantaire Mehul Chinubhai Choksi – more than seven years after he, along with his nephew Nirav Deepak Modi - allegedly duped the Punjab National Bank of nearly Rs. 13,800-crores.

 

The scam involving the ‘Mehul Mama-Nirav Bhanja’ erupted in Jan 2018, after the PNB lodged a complaint with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

 

By then the kin, along with many of their family members, winked and slipped out of the country, leaving a rattled India rubbing its palms in disappointment.

 

A political-cum-financial storm raged, embarrassing the Bharatiya Janata Party government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi a year before the Lok Sabha elections.

 

Multiple agencies launched a multi-pronged probe into what became the biggest banking scam in the past quarter century – and almost four times bigger than the stock market-cum-banking fraud the late Big Bull Harshad Mehta had inflicted on the Indian economy 33 years ago (in April 1992) – when it was just opening up.

 

In Belgium

According to official reports, Choksi was living with his Belgium citizen-wife Preeti in Antwerp, a global diamond hub, presumably for the past 18 months on a ‘residency permit’ acquired through questionable means, for medical reasons.

 

Earlier, he shot to the headers (June 2021) while being taken in a wheelchair to a court by the Dominican Republic's Police on charges of sneaking into the small country in the Caribbean Sea, North America.

 

Interestingly, as the Antigua & Barbuda government initiated the process to cancel his citizenship acquired through an investor visa, Choksi had suddenly gone ‘missing’ till he surfaced in the Dominican Republic.

 

The April 2025 action by Belgium followed a request by India’s CBI and the financial frauds specialist Enforcement Directorate (ED) to nab Choksi as the InterPol had revoked his Red Corner Notice in 2023.

 

Mama and Bhanja

‘Mama’ Choksi is the founder-owner of Gitanjali Group while ‘bhanja’ Nirav’s Firestar plus other companies – and the duo, with some PNB officials hand-in-glove – conspired to make a ‘mamu’ of not only PNB, but other banks, as it subsequently tumbled out.

 

After making a quiet exit, Choksi was detected living in the verdant Antigua & Barbuda Isles (West Indies), then attempted entry to the Dominican Republic, was sent back to Antigua & Barbuda and then went to Belgium where he was nabbed on Sunday.

 

Similarly, Modi was found sauntering on the streets of London and nabbed in March 2019. He remains in jail there since India's extradition is still pending.

 

However, India is keeping its fingers crossed that it may finally lay hands on Choksi, bring him to India and face trial in the PNB scam, though it may take time.

 

Born in Mumbai (1959) and educated in Gujarat, Choksi, 66, and wife Preeti have three children.

 

The Rs. 13,800-crore PNB scam

In the modus operandi revealed after India’s second-largest PSU bank PNB admitted it was scammed, Choksi and Modi used fraudulent Letters of Undertaking (LoU) to get overseas credits or loans from Indian banks.

 

The PNB first informed the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) of the fraud and then lodged a criminal complaint with the CBI in Jan. 2018, plus another CBI complaint in Feb, that led to a FIR against Modi and Choksi and their companies.

 

The ED entered the scene to probe the allegations of money-laundering through the LoUs – which they allegedly misused to avail short-term business finances from foreign branches of Indian banks.

 

The probe said that the duo were availing the LoUs from the PNB’s Brady House Branch from March 2011, and over the next six-seven years, managed to get a whopping 1,200-plus LoUs like a breeze with the help of some friendly bankers within.

 

Post-scam, the gold-diamond companies Gitanjali Group and Firestone Group with multiple operations in India and abroad have largely wound up, while some personal assets of the mama-bhanja have been auctioned to recover a part of the dues.

 

ED's plea to declare Choksi fugitive stuck for seven years

Even as absconding diamantaire Mehul Choksi, a key accused in the Punjab National Bank loan fraud case, has been arrested in Belgium, the ED's plea to declare him a fugitive economic offender has been pending before a court in Mumbai for nearly seven years.


Choksi, 65, and his nephew diamantaire Nirav Modi are the prime accused in the Rs 13,000 crore PNB bank loan fraud case. Choksi was arrested in Belgium following an extradition request by Indian probe agencies, official sources said on Monday.


The Enforcement Directorate had filed the application in July 2018, seeking to declare Choksi an FEO and confiscate his assets under provisions of the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act.


However, the matter has witnessed repeated delays owing to a barrage of applications filed by the accused in the PMLA court and the Bombay High Court alleging procedural lapses in the Enforcement Directorate's plea.


"The court is kept busy with frivolous applications, and hearing on our application to declare him (Choksi) an FEO has been adjourned for the past seven years,” an ED officer had said after the hearing was once again deferred this February.


"The court should have continued the hearing and taken a decision on the future course of action once the application was moved," the officer had said.

He had urged the court to take note of the repeated filing of similar applications and to not entertain them.


Choksi's lawyer had informed the court that the accused was undergoing treatment for suspected cancer in Belgium and intended to file an application in connection with his health.


Under the FEO Act, an individual can be declared a Fugitive Economic Offender if a warrant has been issued against him for an offence involving Rs 100 crore or more and he has left India while refusing to return. Once declared an FEO, the person's property can be confiscated by the investigating agency.


Choksi had challenged the ED's application in the Bombay High Court, alleging that the agency "had not followed proper procedure before filing the application and, hence, it stands vitiated".


However, in September 2023, the High Court dismissed his plea, ruling that the ED had adhered to the prescribed format under the FEO Act. It also vacated a stay on the special court's proceedings.


Despite this, the hearing on declaring Choksi FEO could not commence, with Choksi continuing to file applications before the special court through his lawyers.


While most of these pleas have been dismissed, a few remain pending. His latest attempt to stall proceedings through a plea to recall the notice issued on the ED's FEO application was rejected in December 2023.


According to ED officials, Choksi left India under suspicious circumstances in early January 2018.


Shifting stance

Choksi's counsel has argued that the ED kept shifting its stance on the material grounds for declaring him an FEO and that the suspension of his Indian passport made it impossible for him to return for investigation.

The court, however, rejected this argument, stating that the notice was issued based on accurate information and not based on "wrong facts or mistaken assumptions".


ED claimed the accused left the country under suspicious circumstances in the first week of January 2018.


Nirav Modi has already been declared as an FEO by the special court. He has been lodged in jail in London since 2019.

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