New Delhi: Spotting the lead business story of the week is no longer a painstaking exercise as with a scam a week there is no dearth for stories to seek. Before the heat and dust generated by the Telgi stamp paper scam could reach their natural levels, the nation has been served with the Common Aptitude Test (CAT) scam.

The Telgi scam involved a kingpin and his touts who had criminal instincts mapped in their genes and chromosomes. The CAT scam also involved a criminally mapped kingpin and touts but they were also helped along by parents, teachers and the future managers, doctors, bankers and judges - the ones who will weave the socio-economic and moral fabric of our society in the days to come.

The CAT examination is the entrance test for students aspiring to enter the six prestigious Indian Institute of Management (IIM) schools and 52 other well-known business schools. Last week the CAT examination was cancelled as the papers were leaked.

The CAT exams was scheduled to be held on Sunday and the night before, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), acting on a tip-off, raided a hotel room in Delhi where they found a few touts and a few future managers poring over the CAT papers and trying to solve it.

One Dr Ranjit Singh, alias Don, who hails from Laloo land, has, over the years, built up a huge conglomerate by leaking out entrance test papers of the medical, banking, judicial and management examinations the night before the exams for modest considerations ranging between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 15 lakh.

Don's unique selling proposition (USP) was that he managed to get hold of the question papers well before the exams were held. His unique cunning was that he released the papers to his customers just the night before the exams and under quarantine conditions.

He figured out that if he released the CAT papers for, say, Rs 1 lakh a few days before the exams, then each of the future managers who received the papers would sell the papers to 10 other future managers for Rs 1 lakh a piece. That would finish his USP and ultimately his conglomerate.

The CBI is probing the matter but the blame game has begun and is continuing with new twists and turns every day. The CAT exams are conducted by the IIMs and this year, it was coordinated by IIM-Ahmedabad. The examinations are supervised by a CAT core group comprising six good Dons from each of the IIMs.

The paper setters (good Dons) were kept in isolation for several days where they conjured up the trick questions. Each paper setter did not know what the other paper setters conjured and ultimately is in the dark about the final paper, the contents of which were decided by the core group.

The exam material was then proof read and prepared in 'butter print' form at the IIM's press. Next, accompanied by good Dons, the material was sent to the press of the Indian Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS) in Mumbai for printing. From this stage till the papers were printed and sealed, the good Dons of IIM-Ahmedabad were not in the picture.

The sealed papers were then handed over to the good Dons from the six IIMs who took it back to their portals of learning to let it rest there for a few days. A day or two before D-day the papers were fished out and sent to the 26 centres where the exams were being held. This time the papers for each centre were carried by a good Don, who was accompanied by junior staffers from the IIMs.

Reacting to the leak Bakul Dholakia, director of IIM-Ahmedabad, said: "The printing press could be the weak link in an otherwise foolproof mechanism." He later went on to add: "Internal enquiries have been initiated at all the six IIMs late on Sunday to once again crosscheck whether there was any loophole in our own systems. The enquiry at IIM-A is already over and we are sure that there was no loophole or no involvement from our institute in the question paper leak. I also strongly believe the same result will be repeated following enquiries at other IIMs, which are expected to be over by Tuesday morning." The Dons of the other IIMs also mouthed similar homilies later.

IBPS director D P Sarda said the leak could very well have taken place while the printed question papers were being transported to the exam centres. "We are pained by the allegations. Such an incident hasn't occurred in the history of the IBPS. We are a professional organisation typesetting entrance exam papers since 1984." He later went on to add that the IBPS press is fully automated and, hence, foolproof.

Meanwhile, the 1.26-lakh students who shed blood, sweat, toil and tears to prepare for the exams are wondering whether Ranjit Singh, the bad Don, has the powers of telepathy.