Question paper leak: TSPSC to take a call on cancelling exam

Hyderabad, March 14: Telangana State Public Service Commission (TSPSC) will hold an emergency meeting on Tuesday to take a decision on the cancellation of the examination conducted for recruitment to the posts of Assistant Engineers in various departments in view of the question paper leak.

Hyderabad Police on Monday arrested nine persons, including two employees of TSPSC and a police constable in the exam paper leak case.

Based on the police report on the investigations conducted so far, the Commission will decide on cancelling the exam.

The TSPSC had conducted the examination on March 5 for 833 vacancies of Assistant Engineer, Municipal Assistant Engineer, Technical Officer, and Junior Technical Officer in various engineering departments. A total of 55,000 candidates had written the exam.

As the two employees TSPSC allegedly copied folders containing question papers of various exams from computers in the confidential section, the Commission already postponed the recruitment examinations to the posts of Town Planning Building Overseer scheduled on March 12 and Veterinary Assistant Surgeon scheduled to be held on March 15 and 16.

Meanwhile, TSPSC has suspended P. Praveen Kumar, who was working as Assistant Section Officer (ASO) with immediate effect, pending further departmental enquiry and disciplinary action.

The Commission has also terminated the services of another accused Rajasekhar Reddy, a network expert working on outsourcing basis.

According to police, Praveen and Rajasekhar accessed the system of confidential section officer Shankar Lakshmi. They copied folders containing question papers in four pen drives and shared the papers for the post of assistant engineer (civil) with some aspirants.

Those arrested include a former teacher L. Renuka, who had struck a deal with Praveen for Rs 10 lakh to help her brother Rajeshwar Naik. who was appearing for the exam. Renuka's husband Dakiya Naik and four others were also arrested.

Renuka and her husband had paid Rs 5 lakh to Praveen on March 2 and another Rs 5 lakh on March 6.

The accused had also sold question papers for Rs 13.50 lakh to two other aspirants, who were allegedly referred by a police constable.

Police were investigating if the accused had leaked question papers of the exams held for recruitments in the past.

"We have sent the computers and hard disks seized from the accused to a forensic laboratory for analysis," said Kiran Khare, Deputy Commissioner of Police (South West).