Probe after 66 selected as junior engineers from same coaching institute

The Haridwar administration in Uttarakhand has ordered a probe after 66 students from a private coaching institute in Roorkee were selected through a government recruitment exam in 2017 and hired as junior engineers for two state-owned power companies.

District magistrate Deepak Rawat said on Sunday that additional district magistrate (finance) Lalit Narayan Mishra will head the investigation.

The Uttarakhand Subordinate Service Selection Commission conducted the exam to hire 252 junior engineers for the Power Transmission Corporation of Uttarakhand Limited (PICUL) and the Uttarakhand Jal Vidyut Nigam (UJVN).

“The success rate of selected candidates is quite high for such a small coaching centre. As per directives from state selection commission, we are looking into this matter. Prima facie the matter seems suspicious,” Rawat said.

He said the institute has failed to provide “any relevant documental or receipt record of the selected candidates, though some students currently taking coaching accepted that the candidates used to take coaching there”.

The exam on November 5 last year triggered a controversy after Nainital-based Jagdeesh Pandey and four more people filed a writ petition in the high court this year, questioning how so many candidates from a single coaching institute — Genius Education Point — passed the test.

Besides, the coaching institute posted on Facebook about its “bright students” who got hired and facilitated these candidates at a Ramnagar-based hotel recently, attracting attention on social media and inquiries from people seeking to join the centre, said officials, who don’t want to be named.

The petitioners were candidates too but didn’t make it. They alleged that the exam was manipulated and demanded its cancellation.

The district magistrate and administrative officials conducted a preliminary inquiry and searched the premises of the coaching centre on March 8 to gather information about its enrolments and student fee proofs. About 80 students are enrolled in the institute, at present.

According to officials, the institute’s owners could not show any fee receipt, registers or log of all the 66 candidates. The details of these students were collected and they will be questioned, if required, the officials said.

Vivek Kumar, a functionary of the institute, said: “We will give full explanation and all the required and relevant details about the students hired through the exam. We will also cooperate with the administration. We have nothing to hide.”

This is the second such controversy in two years to emerge from Roorkee. Several students alleged a paper leak during the provincial civil service exam in 2017, saying the seal of the envelope containing the question paper was open before it was brought to the exam hall.

Police arrested a coaching center owner at Narsain last year after Bluetooth devices and electronic devices used for cheating in exams were found at the institute’s office.