PGI entrance paper leak: 4 accused declared PO

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 18

A local court has declared four persons proclaimed offenders in a hi-tech cheating and paper leak scam pertaining to the PGIMER MD/MS entrance exam in 2012.

The CBI had named a total of 32 accused in the case. Four of them, namely Abdul Jabbar, Gali Subhadra, R Promila and Hari Priya, failed to appear in court.

The three women had acted as dummy candidates while Jabbar helped the main accused, P Guirivi Reddy (31), in bringing dummy candidates to the city.

The exam was held on November 10, 2012, and the scam was unearthed the next day. It was found that six women had enrolled for the test just to leak the paper and did not have the mandatory MBBS degree, the eligibility condition for the test. Candidates had paid Rs 30 lakh to Rs 40 lakh to Andhra Pradesh resident Reddy for getting the exam cleared. Most of them had paid half the amount.

The dummy candidates leaked the question paper through button-hole cameras fitted in their clothes to Reddy, who had put up at a Sector 35 hotel. The questions were forwarded to subject experts in Patna and Ahmedabad, who relayed the answers to Reddy. Finally, Reddy dictated answers to the ‘actual’ candidates, who had paid him money.

A team of CBI officials had also booked a room in the same hotel. Reddy was arrested when he was in the middle of dictating answers, over phone, to the ‘actual’ candidates. Seven such candidates, all women, were nabbed from four different examination centres.