New Delhi: The Centre on Friday rushed to shield Gujarat-cadre IAS officer and CBSE chairperson Anita Karwal from reporters' questions about moral responsibility and possible action over the leak of two exam papers, taken by several lakh students.

At a news conference, school education and literacy secretary Anil Swarup answered all the tough questions directed at Karwal, a former chief electoral officer of Gujarat.

When a reporter asked whether Karwal might face action, Swarup said: "Two levels of inquiries (police's and the CBSE's) are on. Unless you get to know what went wrong, how can action be taken? We are trying to understand the process. At this point we cannot say what went wrong."

He said any action would be based on the findings of the inquiries, and added that the three-member CBSE inquiry might hand in its report within a month.

Swarup gave the same answer when Karwal was asked about moral responsibility.

Under Karwal, the board had this year abandoned its decades-old, tried-and-tested practice of having multiple sets of question papers for each subject, opting for a single set with varying sequences of questions within sub-sets.

Educationists and school principals have underlined that multiple papers restrict the need for an across-the-board retest in the event of a leak.

When Karwal was asked whether the board had had any discussions before deciding to have a single set of questions, Swarup again jumped to her aid.

"I'm not commenting on the processes. We will find out what went wrong. The immediate problem is the problem of the children," he said.

Swarup also defended Karwal when she was asked why she had allowed Wednesday's mathematics test to be held despite receiving an advance tip-off about the leak.

"She got an email about the leaked paper at 1.29am. She checked the mail at 8.55am and immediately sent it for verification. By the time the clarification arrived, the examination had already started," Swarup said.

During the 50-minute news conference, Karwal spoke barely for two minutes. She intervened to answer a question on Monday's Class XII economics paper leak.

"Police had reasonable suspicion that it might have been leaked the previous day. So it was cancelled (on Wednesday)," Karwal said.

Police sources say the board received an advance tip-off about the Class XII exam leak on Monday morning in an un-addressed enveloped but did not reveal anything for two days till the Class X leak became public. Karwal, a Gujarat cadre officer, was an additional secretary in the human resource development ministry before being appointed CBSE head last October.