Meet Ganesh Kumar, the man who topped an exam

On May 30, when the Bihar State Education Board declared the Class XII results, Ganesh Kumar, a student of Ram Nandan Singh Jagdeep Narayan Inter College in Samastipur, was in Kolkata performing the last rites of his uncle. Unlike thousands of anxious students, Kumar was calm. According to his family, he was more worried about how he would support them in Giridih, Jharkhand. 

Around 2 pm, the results were announced. While a third of the more than 1.2 million students cleared the exam, Ganesh topped in humanities. He had scored 92 in Hindi, 59 in psychology, 78 in English and 80 each in History and Sociology. He also scored 65 out of 70 in practical in music, and 18 out of 30 in theory. An award comprising Rs 1 lakh and a laptop was announced for him. However, he looked tense after learning about the result. 

Reporters tried to reach him, but could not get to him. Even the principal of his school said he doesn’t personally know Ganesh. He returned to the school on June 1, where TV channels were waiting for him. He was subject to intense interrogation — some even asked him to sing and play the harmonium, which he did in a ham-handed way. 

Soon, the TV channels started screaming scam. However, BSEB officials defended Kumar, saying he wrote his copy himself. They insisted that it wasn’t a re-run of last year’s toppers’ scam, where the toppers were caught on camera giving ludicrous answers to elementary questions related to their subjects. According to journalists who interviewed him, while Ganesh fumbled in music, he answered several of their questions correctly. “I knew that I would get good marks as I chose marks-fetching subjects such as music and social science,” he told newsmen. 

The catch lay elsewhere. Despite his grown-up looks, no one had doubted Ganesh’s age: he had mentioned his date of birth as June 2, 1993 in his examination form. Then, BSEB officers, while preparing a backgrounder on Ganesh, stumbled upon his old records. 

“We were shocked to know that Ganesh’s real age is 41 and he is a father of two. He had passed his Class X in 1990 under his real name, Ganesh Ram, and given his date of birth as November 7, 1975,” says BSEB Chairman Anand Kishore. His name was removed from the toppers’ list and he was handed over to the police on June 2. 

According to BSEB officials, Ganesh had also passed Class XII exams in commerce stream in 1992 with less than 60 per cent marks. The board officials caught him with a stroke of luck. “He had changed his name and his date of birth to reappear for the Class X and Class XII exams. However, he didn’t fudge his father’s name. That’s how we caught him,” says Kishore. He insists that the marks Ganesh obtained were genuine. “We re-evaluated his answer sheet and matched his handwriting. There is no doubt that he did exceptionally well in the exams.” 

Police and BSEB officials have very little information about what Ganesh did after 1992. In the preliminary interrogation, Ganesh said he tried getting a bachelor’s degree, but couldn’t because of financial constraints. He took up petty jobs here and there. Then in 2011, he started working for a Kolkata based chit fund in Giridih, but in 2013, the promoters of the fund ran away after duping people of Rs 15 lakh. Ganesh, afraid of the backlash, left Giridih and came to Patna. Here, he started giving tuitions to Class X and XII students. His friends, impressed with his prowess, encouraged him to appear in competitive exams. However, since his age had passed, Ganesh allegedly decided to fudge his age. He decided to reappear in Class X and XII with a new date of birth. 

According to the police, he got in touch with a tout who got him admitted to the Sanjay Gandhi High School in Samastipur. From this school, he appeared for Class X exams. Later, the tout got him admitted to Ram Nandan Singh Jagdeep Narayan Inter College in the same district. 

Ganesh, while talking to the media, also confessed that he hid his real age in order to get a government job. “All I ever wanted was to take care of my family. I was told that I have good knowledge and I should try for a government job,” Ganesh said.