The class 10 and 12 exams have begun in India and herald the country’s annual ‘cheating season’, The Times reports.

Corrupt teachers and examiners are known to leak exam papers in order to help students secure top marks.

Unaware he was being filmed on a phone, Parveen Mall, headmaster of a private school in the state of Uttar Pradesh, told his students: “Just put a 100 rupee note in the answer sheet … the teachers will blindly give you marks. Even if you answer a question wrongly, which is for four marks, they will give you three marks,” he said in the two-minute clip. “The teachers at your government school exam centres are my friends. None of my students ever fail,” he added.

Mr Mall was arrested after the video was given to the state government.

The highest scoring students – “exam toppers” – are published by every state each year, with the top students attaining the status of minor celebrities. This has, however, led to the downfall of some.

One girl, from Bihar, was interviewed in 2016 and revealed that she thought political science was the study of cookery. As a result, all the state’s toppers were forced to re-sit their exams. One boy, who had originally scored 97 per cent in science, was subsequently unable to explain what linked H₂O and water.