HYDERABAD: As announced by Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy, the Vigilance and Enforcement Department has begun a probe into the alleged goof-up in the evaluation of intermediate question papers during the BRS government in 2019, involving Globarena, the firm that handled major examinations, including CBSE and NEET, after rebranding.
Senior officials of the Vigilance and Enforcement Department on Wednesday visited the Board of Intermediate Education office in Nampally, where they summoned then Education Secretary A Ashok and questioned him for around five hours. Sources said the Vigilance officials would question Ashok for the second consecutive day on Thursday.
Once the Vigilance and Enforcement probe is completed, the state government is likely to examine the possibility of reopening the case.
It may be recalled that after the NEET controversy surfaced, the chief minister on July 26 announced that the vigilance department would conduct a probe into the alleged goof-up in the evaluation of Intermediate examination papers in 2019. Following the controversy, around 27 Intermediate students died by suicide.
After the NEET controversy, the state government examined the details of the 2019 Intermediate examination episode. It found that the then BRS government had closed the FIR. Reopening the case would require registration of a second FIR, for which a legal opinion was required. Following a complaint recently lodged by an MLC, the Revanth Reddy government therefore asked the Vigilance Department to probe the matter.
The Congress government is also examining why Globarena was not blacklisted by the BRS government and why criminal cases were not filed against the firm.
After the 2019 goof-up, the then BRS government constituted a three-member committee to examine the allegations. The committee concluded that infighting within the Intermediate Board and among teachers’ unions had led to embarrassment for both the Board and the government.
The allegation was that the results of more than 21,000 students had been fudged. The tender for evaluation of the papers was floated in 2019.
According to sources, the Vigilance and Enforcement department is examining several aspects of the tender process, including who participated in the tender, who emerged as L1 (lowest bidder), the conditions attached to the tender and MoU, and whether the company fulfilled those conditions.
The MoU allegedly required the company to demonstrate the accuracy of its results using previous-year data. The probe is also examining why the main company did not carry out certain activities and why they were subcontracted to other entities, including a Bihar-based firm.
