In the wake of a media expose pointing fingers at the merit of Bihar toppers, the Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) has asked 14 students to sit for a re-examination to prove their mettle.
The board had on Friday asked Saurabh Shrestha and his college mate Rahul Kumar, who were among the 14 toppers from the arts and science streams in the Class XII examinations, to reappear in a re-test.
Saurabh Shrestha from the Science stream, who had secured 485 out of 500, hogged the headlines recently, failing to answer basic questions from the subject he topped in. Following the video, questions were raised about the education system of the state leading to a re-examination of the toppers.
However, Saurabh shocked his examiners during the re-examination by threatening to commit suicide if they continued asking him questions. Saurabh even said that he had been under a lot of pressure ever since the video of him surfaced on media and was unable to answer the examiners’ questions.
According to a report by The Week, the threat forced the examiners to stop the questioning process and they had to let him go after asking him a few more questions.
“The BSEB has decided to cancel the result of science topper Saurabh Shrestha and another rank holder in the same stream Rahul Kumar as their performance in Friday’s re-test was found not up to mark,” BSEB Chairman Lalkeshwar Prasad Singh said.
Meanwhile, Ruby Rai, Class XII Arts topper, now famous for describing political science as “prodigal science” and calling it the science of “cooking,” had skipped the re-examination citing health reasons and thus, has been given one week’s time to re-appear.
However, out of the 14 students that were to be evaluated, 11 were found up to the mark and have been given a clean chit, said a source from the state board.