CBI probe into LDC recruitments at Controllerate of Quality Assurance

The Central Bureau of Investigation has initiated a probe into the alleged recruitment of ineligible persons as lower-division clerks (LDC) in the Materials Division of the Controllerate of Quality Assurance (CQA) in Kanpur.

Those named in the FIR are the then CQA(M) deputy controller Santosh Kumar Tiwari, Ravikant Pandey, Utkarsh Srivastava, Arti Gupta, Pratibha Mishra and Arpit Singh.

In all, 4,181 candidates had applied for the posts and 952 were found to be eligible for the written test on June 26, 2016 in which 517 candidates appeared. It is alleged that unsealed answer sheets were kept in the office of Dr. Tiwari, who was also the presiding officer, in violation of the guidelines.

The marks were tampered with and in some cases, answers were also changed. The external member was not involved in the process of evaluating the answer sheets.

Alleged manipulations were done to induct six ineligible candidates. Arpit Singh was recruited under the Physically Handicapped category, but he did not have the requisite certificate.

According to the FIR, Ravikant Pandey is a relative of one H. N. Tiwari; Pratibha Mishra is the daughter of a staff member of the Central Ordnance Depot Cantonment in Kanpur and daughter-in-law of one P.P. Dwivedi; the then security officer of CQA(M) Utkarsh Srivastava is the son of a retired office superintendent with the SQA Establishment (Armament).