Haryana SIT to summon 30 secretariat staff

CHANDIGARH: Intensifying its investigation into the Haryana Staff Selection Commission's cash-for-jobs scam, the special investigation team of the chief minister's flying squad on Monday decided to summon 30 Haryana Secretariat officials whose names figured in the conversations of eight of the nine accused arrested last week.
The scam is linked to the appointments to the posts of drivers, clerks and nurses, advertised by the commission over a period of one-and-a-half years.

As many as 2,200 calls were intercepted by the SIT after complaints of corruption in the HSSC were received by the CMO since June last year. During interrogation, three of the accused confirmed to have frequently visited the secretariat in Chandigarh to meet officials.

"Either their names had prominently and repeatedly come up in conversations or they themselves had interacted with some of the accused. They will be asked to join our investigation,'' confirmed SIT head Dheeraj Setia.

8 accused to appear in Panchkula court today

The eight accused, including five HSSC officials are currently in the SIT custody and they will be produced in a Panchkula court on Tuesday. Junior lecturer Suresh Kumar, the ninth person to be arrested last week on Thursday is in custody of the Jind police.

The arrested men were superintendent Subhash Prashar, assistants Rohtash Sharma and Sukhwinder Singh, cashier Anil Sharma, IT cell official Puneet Saini, manpower contractor Dharminder Singh, Haryana Shahari Vikas

Pradhikaran (HSVP) clerk Balwan Singh and Surender Kumar, an assistant in the irrigation department. The junior lecturer in Jind used to act as middleman for the scamsters.

A case under various sections of Prevention of Corruption Act, Cheating, forgery and various sections of Information and Technology (IT) Act was registered against them at Panchkula’s Sector 5 police station.

During interrogation, the eight accused confessed that they used to operate in four teams and work independently — they would first identify successful candidates and then extort Rs 2-5 lakh from them “to ensure their jobs.”

Data operator Saini was close to the commission members and the chairperson. He and his contractor Dharminder Singh operated as a team. The second team comprised Balwan Singh Surender Singh, the third team had Subhash Chander, Rohtash Kumar and Sukhwinder Singh. Anil Kumar, the eighth accused, operated independently.

Besides seizing hard disks and computer systems, the SIT also recovered files containing documents of successful and unsuccessful candidates from the HSSC premises in Panchkula.