M A I N   N E W S

BPSC chief, 8 others in vigilance net
Remanded to 13-day judicial custody

Patna, December 29
Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) Chairman Ramsinghasan Singh, its Deputy Secretary, member and six other employees were arrested today on charges of forgery, cheating and indulging in corrupt practices in the selection of 184 candidates to the Bihar Administrative Services (BAS) and remanded to 13-day judicial custody.

Special Vigilance Judge Ram Niwas Prasad remanded them to judicial custody till January 10.

Additional Director General of Vigilance Bureau Neelmani told reporters at the Vigilance Office that the government had on December 7 handed over to the bureau the probe into the rampant irregularities in the selection of the candidates.

Following this an FIR had been filed at the vigilance police station here and altogether 13 BPSC officials, including its former Chairman Razia Tabasum, were named accused in the case.

The nine were arrested as they could not give satisfactory replies on being summoned to the vigilance office on Bailey Road, he said adding the others have been asked to explain their positions before the bureau soon.

Of the 184 selected candidates, “glaring irregularities” were detected in the selection process of 60 per cent to 70 per cent of the candidates, Mr Neelamani said.

Mr Neelamani said he did not rule out the officials taking huge amounts as bribes while making recommendations to the government for elevation of the selected candidates to BAS.

The vigilance bureau, he said, had enough evidence to prove the officials’ complicity in the irregularities as several files, relevant documents, computer CDs and other data were recovered during the raids carried out by vigilance officials on the BPSC office.

Besides, the BPSC chairman, the others arrested were its Deputy Secretary Syed Massom Ali, Commission member Shiv Balak Chowdhry, routine clerk Kamata Prasad, librarian Sanjiv Kumar, computer programmers Bhanu Prakash and Vijay Kumar, section officer Ratnesh Prasad, assistant Tejnarain Singh, vigilance bureau sources said.

The arrested were booked under Sections 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 470 (forging documents) of the Indian Penal Code, besides the Prevention of Corruption Act, the sources said.

The selected candidates were elevated to the BAS through the first limited competitive examination of 2003, the result of which was published in May.

After being handed over the probe by the government, a team of vigilance sleuths had on December 7 raided the office of the BPSC and had seized documents relating to the examination. But little cooperation was got from the BPSC officials, who had earlier refused to hand over the documents of consequence for the vigilance inquiry, the sources said.

Following this, the vigilance officials had moved the Patna High Court which directed the BPSC officials to cooperate with the probe team and hand over all requisite documents, including answer sheets, tabulation sheets to the vigilance department which was to file a sealed cover report to the court on January 3, 2006.

The direction was given by Mr Justice S.K. Katiar while hearing a bunch of petitions challenging the results of the examination. — PTI