Dilip Prasad, suspended JPSC chairman

Full marks for mistaking Lord Cornwallis, governor-general of India from 1786 to 1793, for Lord William Bentinck, governor-general from 1828 to 1835

No deductions for writing a full-length essay on Russia instead of Genevois philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Kudos for praising Jawaharlal Nehru instead of writing an essay on the role of women in the freedom struggle

Ranchi, July 18: Skeletons are fast tumbling out of the Jharkhand Public Service Commission (JPSC) cupboard with the state vigilance bureau grilling 40 examiners who scrutinised answer sheets of 19 civil servants found prima facie guilty of using fraudulent means to clear their examinations.

On June 9, the vigilance bureau had lodged FIRs against 32, including JPSC chairman Dilip Prasad, other members and officials and 19 successful candidates for “acts of grave irregularities, forgery, interpolation and fraud” in conducting the second civil services examinations in 2007-08.

Sources said during interrogation, a few examiners had admitted that they increased marks under the influence of the commission chairman and members.

“The recruitment scam involves a large number of players. So, we are examining teachers in order to establish manipulation of marksheet. We have to establish who influenced the examiners to make interpolations. Some of these examiners may be booked for criminal conspiracy later,” inspector-general (vigilance) M.V. Rao told The Telegraph.

Rao clarified that the vigilance was not trying to judge the quality of evaluation.

He said they were receiving calls from unsuccessful candidates, but could not provide them any relief. “Our mandate is to fix the criminal responsibility of people who vitiated the entire examination process,” he pointed out.

As if clearing wrong answers wasn’t folly enough, a teacher examining anthropology papers even reduced marks for every wrong answer to prop a candidate who went on to become a block development officer.

Quizzed by vigilance officials, the teacher explained that he had found the marks distribution too high for a social science subject.

Most of these examiners belong to colleges in Varanasi and Santhal Pargana.

According to sources, the bureau is planning forensic tests of answer sheets of all the 172 successful candidates to detect interpolations and overwriting. “We will incur heavy expenses, around Rs 27 lakh, on the tests alone,” said a vigilance official.

The vigilance bureau had initially investigated records of 37 of the 172 recruited officials and found 19 prima facie guilty.

They are Prashant Kumar Layek, Radha Prem Kishore, Vinod Ram, Harishankar Barik, Harihar Singh Munda, Ravi Kumar Kujur, Mukesh Kumar Mahto, Kundan Kumar Singh, Mausmi Nagesh, Kanu Ram Nag, Manoj Nath Shahdeo, Prakash Kumar, Kumari Geetanjali, Sangeeta Kumari, Rajneesh Kumar, Shivendra, Santosh Kumar Chaudhary, Kumar Shailendra and Hari Oraon.

All 19 are believed to be relatives and friends of JPSC members, senior bureaucrats and politicians.