The Central Crime Branch (CCB) police here on Thursday informed the Madras High Court that an investigation conducted by it on court orders had confirmed that there had been malpractices in the main written examinations conducted by Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission (TNPSC) for Group-I services in July 2016.
Justice S.M. Subramaniam was told that one Sivasankar employed as a Section Officer in the Evaluation Section of TNPSC had had taken ₹ 9 lakh, 10 sovereigns of gold jewellery and a tab from a candidate for issuing a blank answer script to him after the exams, permitting him to fill it up and replace his original answer script with it.
In a status report filed before the court, the CCB Inspector stated that the Section Officer as well as the candidate Ramkumar were arrested and remanded to judicial custody. He also said the probe revealed that the same candidate had paid ₹23 lakh to another individual, Paulraj, in 2014 but could not succeed in securing a job.
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Hearing adjourned
After recording the submission of the police that a prima facie case of malpractice had been made out, the judge adjourned further hearing on the case to January 19 after directing the police to complete the investigation and file a final report as expeditiously as possible. He also directed them to probe the case further and find out the involvement of others.
It was on August 21 that Mr. Justice Subramaniam had directed the Commissioner of Police, Chennai, to conduct a thorough probe into allegations of large-scale malpractice in the main written examinations conducted by TNPSC. The interim order was passed on a writ petition filed by 27-year-old transgender S. Swapna of Madurai.
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The petitioner had contended that she lost the chance of getting selected for Group I services due to malpractices in the recruitment process. She relied upon a news story telecast by a private Tamil news channel on the alleged malpractice to substantiate her allegations.