Paper leak: TSPSC cancels Group 1 prelims held in October

HYDERABAD: The Telangana State Public Service Commission (TSPSC) on Friday cancelled Group 1 prelims examination held in October, 2022, after the special investigation team (SIT) collated evidence on question paper leak. Over 2.8 lakh aspirants had appeared for the exam on October 16, of which roughly 25,000 qualified for the mains. The re-exam for the Group 1 prelims will now be held on June 11.
During the probe into the recent paper leak case in the assistant engineer (civil) post held on March 5, officials found that key accused P Praveen Kumar had accessed the Group 1 prelims papers too. Incidentally, he scored 103 out of 150 in the test.
TSPSC also cancelled the assistant executive engineer (AEE) exam conducted on January 22 and divisional accounts officer (DAO) exam held on February 16. Fresh dates for these tests will be intimated to candidates soon, TSPSC said.
Meanwhile, SIT has got custody of the nine accused for six days on Friday and shared its preliminary investigation report with the commission where it stated that Praveen - personal assistant to TSPSC secretary - may have accessed several question papers, including Group 1 prelims, triggering possibility of leaks similar to the recent exam.
Officials also confirmed that the accused mapped the IP address of the computer belonging to the confidential section's in-charge, Shankar Laxmi, to his system on October 7, 2022, to access question papers. The same day, co-accused A Rajasekhar, network in-charge at TSPSC, worked on Laxmi's computer and made it accessible to Praveen - 10 days prior to prelims - SIT team stated.