JAIPUR: The Special Operations Group (SOG) of the Rajasthan Police has arrested five people for their alleged role in manipulating OMR sheets in several recruitment examinations conducted in 2018, including the Agricultural Supervisor and Anganwadi Women Supervisor exams.
Addressing the media, Additional Director General Vishal Bansal said, “Five accused have been arrested. In some cases, marks that should have been as low as two were altered to 225. Those entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring fairness acted dishonestly. After the selection board received complaints, a committee was formed, and the accused were also members of that committee.”
According to the SOG, Vinod Kumar Gaud and Shadan Khan were arrested first. Based on information obtained during their interrogation, three more accused were later arrested. Both Gaud and Khan were employees of Raghav Limited, the firm that was assigned OMR scanning work for examinations conducted by the Rajasthan Staff Selection Board in 2018.
An FIR in the case was registered at Gomti Nagar police station in Lucknow in January 2025.
The arrests come at a time when there is widespread discontent in Rajasthan over the Class IV recruitment examination, with several candidates alleging tampering of OMR sheets after the exams and pointing to unusually high cut-off marks.
In a related development, the SOG has recently arrested three more individuals in connection with irregularities in multiple recruitment processes. In the Rajasthan Public Service Commission Senior Teacher (Secondary Education) Competitive Examination-2022 paper leak and dummy candidate case, the SOG arrested absconding accused Suresh Kumar Bishnoi, against whom a permanent arrest warrant had already been issued.
Meanwhile, in the Sub-Inspector recruitment-2021 case, the High Court has taken serious note of the leak of a confidential SOG report and has summoned the SOG ADG to appear on February 2 to place details of the investigation conducted so far.
The SOG said the RPSC conducted the Science subject examination on December 24, 2022, and the General Knowledge and Educational Psychology examination on January 29, 2023. Late on the night of December 23, 2022, during a police blockade in the Bekaria police station area of Udaipur, 37 candidates, four dummy candidates and four other accused linked to the gang were arrested from a bus. Police recovered a solved question paper that had been leaked before the examination.
According to the SOG, the organised gang took money from candidates, leaked the question paper in advance and supplied solved answers. The investigation revealed that Suresh Bishnoi had arranged for Ganpatlal Bishnoi to appear in his place in the General Knowledge and Educational Psychology examination held on December 24, 2022, and that a deal of Rs 7 lakh had been struck to arrange a dummy candidate.