Police will have to ensure that microphones and loudspeakers are not used in the city while board exams are on, Calcutta police commissioner Surajit Kar Purkayastha has said.

The top cop, according to officers who attended the conference at the Police Training School on Wednesday evening, said all police stations should ensure that loudspeakers or microphones were not used in the open at any time of the day till the board exams were over.

The last board exam (CBSE Class XII) is scheduled for April 20, which means the ban should ideally be in place till that date.

A Calcutta High Court order says microphones or loudspeakers are banned across the state not only during the exams but also three days before they start.

This year, the exam season started on February 9 with the ISC exams.

A Calcutta police source, however, said the notice banning the use of microphones in the city was issued on February 20, keeping in mind the Madhyamik schedule.

Last year, too, the decibel gag took effect two weeks after the ISC and madarsa exams had started.

In 1996, Justice Bhagabati Prasad Banerjee of Calcutta High Court had observed that nobody could be made a "captive listener" to noise. He later ordered a ban on the use of microphones in the open three days before the start of board exams.

In February 2013, the state pollution control board made a modification, reducing the territorial reach to "residential areas or where educational institutions are situated".

That meant a blanket ban on the use of microphones in the open since there are few places in the city that aren't residential.

Purkayastha on Wednesday asked the traffic department to regulate traffic keeping the board exams in mind. The movement of goods vehicles has been restricted across the city between 8am and noon on days when Madhyamik papers are scheduled.

Cheat cuffs

Dipak Bose, 75, was arrested on Wednesday on charges of impersonating a civic food inspector. Bose visited a shop on Shakespeare Sarani and asked the owner to show his workshop. The owner alerted civic officials who took him to police station where he was arrested.