Images of students blatantly cheating on school-leaving examinations under the noses of supervisors have gone viral, inviting ridicule on Twitter and exposing flaws in the much-maligned education system of Bihar.
There are also reports around 300 people have been arrested, many of them parents of students sitting the exams.
On Thursday March 19, the Hindustan Times published a photo of dozens of men clambering up the wall of a four-storey test centre in Bihar state, perched on window ledges as they folded answer sheets into paper planes flown into classrooms.
Exams held by the Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) are viewed as make-or-break tests that could transform the lives of millions growing up in poverty.
On Friday, the principal secretary, education, Rajneesh Kumar Mahajan said after media reported the case examination at those centres have been cancelled.
"It has been extensively found and seen that such incidents of cheating have happened. This has also been broadly covered by the media. We have taken a decision to cancel examination in such centers which have been found clearly involved in the case. Centers named by the media and reported by the district administration have also been cancelled," said Mahajan at a news conference.
He further said a fine of rupees 2,000 ($32) will be charged as penalty according to the Bihar Conduct Examination Act, 1981.
"We have failed around 766 boys and girls since yesterday," Majahan added.
Copying is rampant during state-run standardized tests and invigilators look the other way when pupils consult peers via WhatsApp messages on phones or jot down answers from notes smuggled into classrooms.
However, Chairman of Bihar School Examination Board, Lalkeshwar Prasad Singh, denied any act of cheating inside the examination hall.
People climb the wall of a building to help students appearing in an examination in Hajipur, in the eastern Indian state of Bihar, Wednesday March 18 2015.
"I was amazed to see a mob of thousand people outside the examination hall, some of who were climbing the windows. But there was no one inside the exam hall who aided cheating. I accept seeing people hanging over the building, but it's also true that there was no cheating inside," said Singh.
Bihar's education minister Prashant Kumar Shahi had also said on Thursday "on average, four or five persons are helping each student use unfair means," adding it was impossible to curb cheating if parents encouraged their children.
More than 1.4 million students are taking the tests this week, crammed into 1,217 examination centres in Bihar.
Supervisors stationed at notorious test centres vie for the postings, enticed by the prospect of bribes from parents eager to have their wards scrape through.
Cheating has been on the rise since the state government offered cash rewards of 10,000 rupees ($160) to lower-caste students who were able to answer about half the questions on their tests.
This year, more than 1,000 students were caught cheating in three days and have been expelled. The tests end on March 24.
Attempts to chase away family members lurking outside test centres on Thursday backfired, with stone-pelting mobs forcing police to beat a retreat.
BSEB Secretary Srinivas Chandra Tiwari told Reuters of plans to hold awareness workshops for students and parents, where attendees would be counselled against unfair means.
But many parents blame the government and indifferent teachers for Bihar's failure to curb cheating.
The state government has been accused of hiring more than 400,000 teachers on contract without checking their proficiency. In the last two years, more than 12,500 teachers failed competency tests, unable to solve questions designed for fifth-graders.
