JPSC: Under heat

Ranchi, April 4: The state vigilance bureau today received forensic reports of answer scripts of the second civil services examinations, which were sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) at Gandhinagar, Gujarat, for examination.

The examination, conducted by the Jharkhand Public Service Commission (JPSC) in 2007-08, is under the scanner for grave irregularities, forgery, interpolation and fraud in awarding marks to candidates.

“A special team was sent to Gujarat to fetch the forensic reports. We are currently going through the documents. A final report on illegal appointments made by JPSC will be submitted to the state government once we complete the examination and tabulation of the forensic findings,” IG (vigilance) M.V. Rao told The Telegraph.

“A large number of answer scripts were sent to FSL. Hence, a complete examination will take some time. We cannot divulge the contents of the forensic report at this stage,” he added.

Out of several thousands of candidates who had appeared for the exam, 172 were finally selected by the JPSC. Of them, the state government terminated the services of 19 — all being friends and relatives of politicians, bureaucrats and JPSC members — after the scam was unearthed. The sacked 19 are eight block development officers, six deputy superintendents of police, four finance service officers and an official from the state co-operative service.

According to sources, further investigations by the vigilance revealed that interpolations were found in at least 130 out of 172 answer scripts of “successful” candidates following which the bureau rushed the papers to FSL for tests.

A report submitted by the bureau to the state government has also recommended legal action against all “successful” candidates, whose papers were found to contain serious interpolations.

On June 12, 2010, FIRs were filed against 32 people — including former JPSC chairman Dilip Prasad, members Radha Govind Singh Nagesh, Shanti Devi and Gopal Prasad Singh and secretary Alice Usha Rani Singh — for handing out jobs to family, friends and their relatives at the direction of governor M.O.H. Farook.

While Prasad surrendered and JPSC secretary Alice Usha Rani Singh was arrested from her Hazaribagh residence, Nagesh, Shanti Devi and Gopal Prasad Singh have gone into hiding.