10-day CAT exam to begin today

To avoid any kind of misuse or instances of cheating during the 10-day computerised Common Admission Test (CAT), which begins tomorrow, the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) have published a legal disclaimer which, if flouted by any student, can attract imprisonment and a fine.

“Disclosing, publishing, reproducing, transmitting, storing, or facilitating transmission and storage of the contents of the CAT or any information therein in whole or part thereof in any form or by any means, verbal or written, electronically or mechanically for any purpose, shall be in violation of the Indian Contract Act, 1872 and/or the Copyright Act, 1957 and/or the Information Technology Act, 2000. Such actions and/or abetment thereof as aforementioned may constitute a cognizable offence punishable with imprisonment for a term up to 3 years and fine up to Rs 2,00,000,” the legal disclaimer on the CAT website reads.

CAT has traditionally been a paper-pencil test, which required about three-and-half hours to administer. From now on, it will be a computerised test spread over 10 days across 32 cities. Considering that CAT is being computerised for the first time, the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) do not want to leave anything to chance, say MBA test-preparing institutes.