The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested 26 railway officials, including a senior divisional electrical engineer (DEE) of East Central Railway, on charges of leaking papers ahead of a departmental examination scheduled for Tuesday. During its raids, the CBI seized ₹1.17 crore cash.

East Central Railway had scheduled a Departmental Examination on March 4 for the posts of Chief Loco Inspectors. During the checks conducted by CBI teams at three spots on the intervening night at Mughal Sarai, which is now known as Deen Dayal Upadhyay Nagar, 17 candidates were found with photocopies of hand-written question papers.

The agency said its investigation has revealed that the accused Senior DEE (Operations) was responsible for setting and preparing the question paper for the examination.

“He in his own hand-writing had written the questions in English and allegedly gave it to one Loco Pilot who in turn translated it into Hindi and further gave it to an OS (Trg.). The said OS (Trg.) allegedly in turn gave it to the candidates through few other Railway Employees,” the agency said in a statement to the media.

The CBI has arrested Sushant Parashar, the Senior DEE (Ops) and 2014 batch IRSE officer, on allegations of collecting money and distributing question papers.

As many as 17 departmental candidates presently working as Loco Pilots allegedly paid money for the question paper and were caught red-handed with the copies of the question papers during the night of March 3-March 4, 2025; all of them were arrested.

Overall, 26 Railway officials have been arrested in this case so far, the CBI informed.

Among them are Niraj Kumar Verma, Chief Office Superintendent, HQ; Raj Narayan Singh Yadav, LPG; Ajit Kumar Singh, Chief Loco Inspector; Anish Kumar, Loco Pilot Shunter, and Suryanath, Loco Pilot Passenger—all of them were posted to the DDU headquarters of the East Central Railway.

The agency has registered the FIR against a senior divisional electrical engineer (operations) who was responsible for setting and preparing the question paper for the examination.