JEE Main 2021 Exam: The National Testing Agency's (NTA) dress code for the Engineering entrance examination, JEE Main 2021, forbids candidates from wearing “shoes or footwear with thick soles and garments with large buttons”. Candidates whose religion or customs require a specific attire, must report for the JEE Main 2021 exam centre early for “thorough checking and mandatory frisking”, says the list of exam instructions on a JEE Main 2021 admit card.
The JEE Main 2021 dress code is meant to deter cheating, or the use of “unfair means”, in the highly competitive entrance exams for undergraduate Engineering programmes in some of the top public institutions in the country. Over 6.6 lakh candidates have registered for the February session of the JEE Main 2021. The NTA bulletin says that candidates will have to use the masks issued at the JEE Main 2021 exam centres, and not their own, for the duration of the exam for the same reason.
The NTA JEE Main 2021 bulletin says: "Candidates will be offered a fresh three-ply mask before entry. In order to stop chances of any UFM (unfair means) being used in the examination, the candidate is expected to wear the freshly provided mask at the centre. The candidate will be requested to remove the mask worn by him/her from home and use only the mask provided at the centre, in the test room".
JEE Main 2021: NTA Stand On Unfair Means
For the NTA, the broad definition of the use of “unfair means” is this: “An activity that allows a candidate to gain an unfair advantage over other candidates.”
Under this, NTA has defined 13 types of actions that would be seen as the use of “unfair means” during JEE Main 2021. These include obvious ones such as bringing in items that can assist in cheating, threatening officials and getting a proxy to write the exam -- better known as “impersonation” -- as well as less obvious ones such as “writing questions or answers on any material other than the answer sheet given by the Centre Superintendent for writing answers”. The breach of JEE Main 2021 exam rules is also using unfair means.
JEE Main 2021: Jammers, CCTV Surveillance, Penalty
To prevent cheating, “live CCTV surveillance has been planned in all examination centres”, said an NTA statement. “The NTA is also making arrangements for live viewing at any remote location and recording CCTVs systems of all examination centres from the Control Room located in the NTA premises of New Delhi,” the statement further said.
To prevent cheating using mobile phone networks, “jammers have been installed in all the centres”, it added.
Candidates who make use of unfair practices during the exam will be “debarred for three years in future and shall also be liable for criminal action and /or any other action as deemed fit”, says the NTA JEE Main 2021 bulletin. The result of the candidate caught cheating will be cancelled -- it will not be declared. “Similarly, the result of those candidates who appear from the centre other than the one allotted to them or allow another candidate or person to write the exam on his behalf will be cancelled,” says the bulletin.
