BHUBANESWAR : The Central Bureau of Investigation’s (CBI) charge sheet in the SI recruitment scam has revealed startling details about how two third-party agencies rigged the system and changed question papers, leaving the Odisha Police Recruitment Board (OPRB) completely in dark.
In the charge sheet filed before Special CJM, CBI, on January 2, the central agency said OPRB had entrusted ITI Limited, a central PSU in Kolkata, with the charge of conducting the SI recruitment examination which was to be held on October 5 and 6 last year.
The ITI Limited, in turn, sublet the work to Silicon Techlab Pvt Ltd, a Bhubaneswar-based firm for question paper preparation and other works. The charge sheet said, Silicon Techlab, without the knowledge of ITI Ltd, roped in another agency Panchsoft Technologies headed by Sankar Prusty who emerged later as the main accused of the scam.
As part of the exercise, Silicon submitted five sets of question papers to the OPRB officials to decide one from them for printing. The board officials selected set no 5 for the examination. However, Silicon’s promoter Suresh Nayak, also an accused in the scam, suggested the OPRB officials to select another set of question paper as a back-up. The OPRB officials then selected set no 3 as the alternative.
Subsequently, OPRB chairman Susanta Nath, member Awinash Kumar and Nayak visited Saraswati Printing Press in Kolkata on September 9. Nayak submitted question paper set no 5 to the printing press before the two officials. However, he later contacted Pinaki Dey, in-charge of confidential section in photo-type setting of Saraswati Printing and claimed that he mistakenly submitted set no 3 instead of set no 5.
The charge sheet revealed that Nayak asked Dey not to open the packet which was submitted to Saraswati Printing and said it would be replaced by the set originally selected by the OPRB officials. The next morning on September 10, Nayak slid question set no 3 in the packet of set no 5 and submitted it for printing. After printing, Nayak got the delivery of the question papers in sealed boxes which were transported to OSAP 6th Battalion in Cuttack with security provided by Odisha Police.
The charge sheet mentioned that Prusty, Nayak and others were part of an organised gang and planned to leak the confidential information related to the question paper in lieu of `25,000 for each candidate. They resorted to unfair means and sabotaged the public examination for wrongful gains, it said.