The CBI has busted a departmental exam racket in the East Central Railway and arrested 26 officials during an operation launched on Monday night.

The East Central Railway had scheduled a departmental examination on Tuesday for the posts of chief loco inspectors. During the raids conducted by the CBI at three locations in Mughal Sarai on Monday night, 17 candidates were found with photocopies of handwritten question papers, the central agency said.

The CBI probe revealed that a senior divisional electrical engineer (operations) had been given the responsibility for preparing the question paper for the said examination.

“He himself had written the questions in English and allegedly gave it to one loco pilot who in turn translated it into Hindi and forwarded it to another official. The said official allegedly gave it to the candidates through a few other railway employees,” a CBI spokesperson said.

The CBI has arrested the accused engineer and 25 other rail employees on the charge of collecting money and distributing the question papers.

The 17 departmental candidates, who were working as loco pilots, allegedly paid money for the question paper and were caught with the photocopies.

Searches conducted at eight locations led to the recovery of ₹1.17 crore, the CBI said.