CUTTACK: The Orissa High Court on Monday disposed of a PIL seeking direction for a CBI probe into the Odisha Police sub-inspector (SI) recruitment examination scam as the state government has already recommended for the investigation to be conducted by the central agency.
The two-judge bench of Chief Justice Harish Tandon and Justice MS Raman was informed by Advocate General Pitambar Acharya that the state government had already recommended a CBI probe into the matter. A notification to this effect has also been issued by the government on the day, he stated.
Advocate Shivsankar Mohanty had filed the PIL. The alleged scam first surfaced when a case was registered at the Golanthara police station in Berhampur based on a tip-off on September 30.
The case was later handed over to the CID-Crime Branch, where it was re-registered under provisions of the Odisha Public Examination (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2004, and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).
The Odisha Police Recruitment Board (OPRB), according to reports, had outsourced the conduct of the exam to ITI Limited, a central public-sector undertaking (PSU) headquartered in Kolkata. However, ITI Limited further sub-contracted the job to Bhubaneswar-based Silicon Techlab, which in turn assigned key responsibilities to Panchsoft Technologies.
After the scam surfaced, the exam originally scheduled for October 5 and 6 had been postponed indefinitely.