The Special Court on Thursday convicted six people of leaking question papers during an MBBS entrance examination conducted by the Ministry of Education three years ago.

The court gave clean chits to two other people accused in the case. In 2014, the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) arrested the people with a 10-page test paper for MBBS biology from Goldengate College, Battisputali.

A division bench of SC Chairman Baburam Regmi and members Dwarika Man Joshi and Narayan Prasad Pokhrel sentenced the main accused Kumar Kusawaha to four years in prison, and slapped Rs3.4 million in fines, Registrar Bhim Shrestha said.

The bench also awarded two-year prison and Rs1.7 million fine to Maheswor Yadav; one-year prison and Rs900,000 fine to Dharmendra Yadav; nine-month prison and Rs505,000 fine to Deviram Pandey; 45-day prison and Rs2,500 fine to Khecharnath Sapkota aka Harihar; and one-year jail and Rs502,000 fine to Jiwach Kumar Yadav. Shaif Akhter and Ghanendra Prasad Sangraula have been cleared of the charges.

The CIAA had arrested the eight individuals on the charge of leaking the question papers of MBBS scholarship examination conducted by the ministry.

Of those sentenced by the court, Deviram Pandey is an investor and the director of Goldengate while Harihar is a teacher at the college. The accused were caught from Ratopul, Gaushala, while receiving money from students on the promise of giving them the test paper.

According to the CIAA, some students who were approached for money in exchange for the question papers had knocked on its door seeking an end to such malpractices. The CIAA then provided some cash to the students and asked them to pay the notes, which could be tracked on the basis of their numbers later, to the mafias and collect receipts.