Two teachers have been acquitted by the sessions court in Seremban of an offence under the Official Secrets Act for leaking the Ujian Penilaian Sekolah Rendah examination papers last September.

 

Sessions judge Jagjit Singh Bant Singh ruled there was no iota of evidence to show they had solicited or made efforts to get possession of these examination papers for 2014.

 

“Who caused the leakage remains unsolved. It is important that the actual culprit be identified and taken to task to avoid future leakages,” Jagjit said in acquitting the two.

 

The decision was tweeted by lawyer M Kulasegaran ( left ), who is also Ipoh Barat MP.

 

L Subbarau@Kamalanathan, 35, and Murugan Palanisamy, 27, were charged under Section 8 (1)(c) of the Official Secrets Act 1972, which provides for a jail term of between one and seven years.

 

Subbarau teaches at SJKT Ladang Batang Benar, and Muru­gan at SJKT Ladang Lenggeng.

 

They were accused of committing the offence between Sept 8 and 16, during the UPSR examinations.

 

Subbarau was slapped with five charges, of having in his possession the Maths Paper 1 and 2, Bahasa Tamil (Comprehension) and Tamil (writing) and Science in his smartphone.

 

Remand unnecessary

Murugan faced a charge of being in possession of several pages of Maths Paper 1 in his smartphone. They were charged with the offences on Nov 6, last year and were alleged to have leaked the examination papers between Sept 8 and 16.

The Sessions judge also ruled that the exam papers were not properly classified as “secret” as stipulated under the Official Secrets Act 1972.

Jagjit further said the remand orders against the two were not necessary.

The defence had argued that the purported exam papers could have been forwarded via spyware or sent to them without their prior knowledge.

It was previously reported that following the UPSR papers leak, two Malaysian Examinations Board senior officials were suspended.

However, Second Education Minister Idris Jusoh announced in January this year that the two - former board director Dr Na'imah Ishak and Deputy Director of Operations Dr Wan Ilias Wan Salleh – are still in service.

The investigation done by the Independent Committee to Review Public Examinations in Malaysia had cleared them, he added.