Five weeks after her arrest and imprisonment, Ruby Rai, the Bihar Intermediate scam accused who shot to infamy by mispronouncing her subject Political Science, was granted bail on Monday.
She was arrested on June 25 when she appeared for her re-test at the Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) office. Her father, who is also an accused, is absconding.
Ruby Rai was sent to the Beur central jail, despite being a juvenile. She was later shifted to the juvenile remand home where she had been languishing for the last three weeks. She was denied bail twice in the case. On Monday, a special juvenile court granted her bail after hearing a petition which pleaded that she was a minor.
Over 20 persons, including the main accused Bachcha Rai, principal of the V.N. Rai College of Vaishaali from where State “topper” Ruby Rai and other “meritorious” students appeared for the exam, former BSEB chairman Lalkeshwar Prasad Singh and his wife, ex-MLA Usha Sinha, have so far been arrested in the case. Over two hundred were transferred.
The scam came to light after a sting by a TV news channel showed Ruby Rai and another student Saurabh Shrestha struggling to answers basic questions related to their subjects. Ruby Rai even pronounced Political Science, a subject in which she passed with distinction, as “Prodikal Science” and said it was all about cooking.
An embarrassed Bihar government ordered a probe and many more skeletons tumbled out of the cupboard. Affiliations of several dubious Intermediate colleges and schools were cancelled.
