In a major swoop by state vigilance sleuths, Bihar Public Service Commission chairman Ramsinghasan Singh, its deputy secretary, a member and six other employees were arrested on Thursday for their alleged involvement in irregularities in the elevation of 184 candidates to the Bihar Administrative Services.
The nine were arrested from the BPSC office on Bailey Road and later produced before special vigilance judge Ram Niwas Prasad, who remanded them to judicial custody till January 10.
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 and assistant Tejnarain Singh, vigilance bureau sources told PTI.
They were arrested after the bureau sleuths stumbled on vital documents pertaining to their involvement in the alleged irregularities in the selection of the candidates for elevation to the BAS through the first limited competitive examination in 2003.
The arrested were booked under Sections 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) and 470 (forging documents) of the Indian Penal Code, besides the Prevention of Corruption Act, the sources said.
A team of vigilance sleuths had, on December 7, raided the BPSC office and had seized documents relating to the examination, the result of which was published in May.
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 Patna High Court, which directed BPSC officials to cooperate with the probe team and hand over all requisite documents, including answer sheets and tabulation sheets to the vigilance department, which was to file a sealed cover report to the court on January 3, 2006.
Justice S K Katiar, while hearing a bunch of petitions challenging the results of the examination conducted in 2003, had also directed the BPSC officials to fully cooperate with the probe team.
The petitioners had alleged irregularities were committed and pleaded for cancellation of the results and conduct of fresh examination. They also alleged that the strong room in the BPSC office, where their answer scripts had been kept, was found broken.
Earlier, a limited number of seats in the BAS were filled by candidates from Class Three services through the process of nomination.
The state government had decided in 1991 that quota posts in BAS would be filled up by personnel of the class three services through a limited examination. It was in pursuance of this decision that the examination was conducted in 2003.
