Uttar Pradesh: CBI books ex-exam controller of UPPSC for faulty selections

LUCKNOW: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered a case under Prevention of Corruption Act, dishonesty, criminal misconduct and forgery against former controller of examinations (COE) of Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (UPPSC) on Friday.
The central agency has also booked unidentified persons in the case. The UP government had recommended the CBI probe into the case on September 4, 2018.
A CBI team carried out a search operation at the Ansal API society near Shaheed Path where residential premises of former COE Prabhunath is located. Searches were continuing till the last reports came in.
A senior CBI official privy to the probe said that Prabhunath and some of his subordinates had abused their official position, resulting in selection of undeserving candidates in the additional private secretary (APS) exam in 2010. The official said that UPPSC had advertised 250 posts of APS in 2010 for the direct recruitment through an advertisement. The exam result was declared in October 2017. It was alleged that rules were violated and additional relaxation was given in the Hindi shorthand test to favour some candidates.
Even though the commission in June 2015 had approved relaxation of 5% errors in Hindi shorthand test, candidates, who had committed up to 8% mistakes, were also allegedly declared qualified for the computer test, stated to be the third phase of the examination.
Moreover, advertisement rules were also relaxed for a few candidates. “Though computer certificates submitted by some candidates were found to be forged, they were declared qualified by the commission,” said the CBI official.
During the probe the CBI found that instead of 913 students, who were qualified, the then COE gave names of 1,244 candidates as qualified. “The Gopan section three also did not crosscheck the gross error and did not raise any objection. It rather put up the list overlooking the decision taken by the examination committee in 2015,” the CBI officer added.
Besides, anomalies in evaluation of Hindi shorthand test and Hindi type test were detected, the CBI officials added.