Ranchi,July,29:The 29th August 2011 was the date when Gopal Prasad Singh the alleged mastermind of Jharkhand Public Service Commission (JPSC) recruitment scam surrendered before the Jharkhand State Vigilance Court in Ranchi. 

Mr Singh was absconding since the scam surfaced in last year and the FIR was registered against him with other accused,despite of numerous raids at his residences at Godda and Dumka, the State Vigilanc and Police was failed to find him; which led to attachment of his property that was situated at various part of Jharkhand.

At the same time Vigilance Bureau then Headed by DIG M V Rao tagged Rupees 50,000 on his arrest. The police action forced Gopal Singh to surrender in the court and thereafter he was sent to the judicial custody. 

The other accused in JPSC recruitment scam case are the former chairman of JPSC and members Dilip Prasad, Shanti Devi.

The expert team appointed by Commission namely Sohan Ram, Batheshwar Pandit, the ex- secretary of JPSC Alice Usha Rani Singh, JPSC evaluators Saraswati Gagrai, and Arti Behera Anil B. Kullu, presently all of them are under judicial custody in Birsa Munda Jail, Ranchi.However the Radha Govind Nagesh is still the absconder who is on the run after ruining the future of many youngsters.

The first FIR against above accused was lodged on 9th June 2010; this was done after the Governor of Jharkhand M.O.H. Farook had ordered the Vigilance Bureau to lodge the case against the accused for their acts of grave irregularities, forgery, interpolation, manipulation and fraud in the 12 different appointments undertaking during their tenure at JPSC.

After the first round of investigation on 12th June 2010, the Vigilance Bureau had filed another FIR accusing as much as 32 people under different sections of IPC (Indian Penal Code) 420, 423, 424, 467, and 468. 

While investigating the answer sheet and mark sheet of 37 of the 172 recruited officials, the investigators found 19 of them to be prima facie guilty.Following which, the Governor had directed the withdrawal of the 19 JPSC appointed officials from the office and consequently the Personnel Department served show-cause notice to these alleged officials, these officials included BDO, Dy.SP and Executive Magistrates.

The Vigilance Bureau lodged the case of fraud and forgery against these officials, for indulging in manipulation and interpolation in the 2nd JPSC recruitment examination. 

It was observed during the investigation that the following 19 Officers, after taking the active illegal support from the above named office bearers of JPSC and by adopting other illegal methods, only then they could have cleared their written examinations and interviews conducted by Commission for their selection. 

Subsequently,the FIR was filed against the following 19 successful JPSC candidates, for their fraudulent appointment. Not surprisingly, the majority of them were found to be the close relatives and associates of the politicians, senior bureaucrats and various JPSC members.

1. Mukesh Kumar Mahto- Brother of Sudesh Mahto, Dy. C.M.

2. Prashant K. Layek- Close Relative of MLA Pradeep Yadav

3. Radha Prem Kishore- Brother of ex-MLA Radha Krishna Kishore

4. Rajneesh Kumar- Son of Gopal P. Singh, Ex-member JPSC

5. Kundan Kumar Singh- Another son of Gopal P. Singh, Ex-member JPSC

6. Maushami Nagesh- Daughter of Radha G. Nagesh, Ex-member JPSC

7. Binod Ram- Brother of Shanti Devi, Ex-member JPSC

The other twelve candidates, namely, Hari Oraon, Harihar Singh Munda, Santosh K. Chaudhary, Sangeeta Kumari,  Harishankar Barik, Kanu Ram Nag, Prakash Kumar, Kumari Geetanjali, Ravi Kumar Kujur, Shivendra, Kumar Kaushalendra and Lal Manoj Nath Shahdeo; they too have links with the influential people of the state.

In fact, it is alleged that of them had got unfair advantages by the officials, to help them qualify the written examinations and interviews, so that they could get into the premium government job of Jharkhand.

In the month of October 2010 as a major breakthrough in the case Vigilance Bureau arrested Vijay Kumar, a veterinary doctor and teaching associate at Birsa Agriculture University of Ranchi. It is alleged that Mr Vijay Kumar played the vital role in negotiating and selling the much coveted State Administrative Jobs to the candidates for heavy sum of hard-cash.

“We have collected incriminating documents and even a compact disc that reveal that Vijay Kumar acted as the principal agent of former JPSC chairman Dilip Prasad when it came to collecting hefty sums from job aspirants and even ensured that they cleared the written papers and viva voice for the various exams conducted by JPSC,” DIG M.V. Rao at Vigilance Bureau told the journalists at that time.

During the course of Vigilance Investigation, it was also observed that the arrested JPSC accused went way beyond the recruitment of State Administrative Officials.Their fraudulent ways also influenced the selection of Bazar Samiti Officials, University Lecturers, Engineers, Teachers, Cooperative Officers, officials for Ranchi University and Sido-Kanhu University.Apart from above they fabricated filling up of many other Government Posts during their tainted JPSC tenure. 

So with their acts they also created distrust with JPSC amongst countless students studying in the various Universities of the Jharkhand; what kind of stuff these University Lecturers who bribed their way is teaching their future generation, it is anybody’s guess?

The Vigilance Bureau has scrutinized the JPSC examination papers of above hundreds of successful students and it was found that out of that the appointment of the several candidates was found to be fabricated.

For instance, the Vigilance Bureau pointed out that Roshan Kumar Sah, who managed to top the Second JPSC Examination; had secured only 80 marks in one of the paper, however his marks were shown as 180 marks.

During the course of Vigilance Bureau investigation, it was found out that the “actual-marks” scored by many aspirants were inflated, to help them get ahead of the genuine candidates.

The list of the successful applicant in the said JPSC Examination reflects the massage of who-is-who of the influential people of the Jharkhand including Chief Ministes and Deputy Chief Minister as well. 

Based on the initial investigation Report of Vigilance services of thirty nine Officers were terminated by the Government. 

The officials in Vigilance Bureau revealed that many more officials, who have allegedly bribed their appointment into the state services and many more followed the same way, if the State Government grant the permission to go ahead with the case.

In total 12 appointment cases, all linked to JPSC was scanned by the Jharkhand Vigilance Bureau investigation followed the arresting of former-members and Chairman of JPSC because they used illegal means to get their friends, relatives and other having deep pockets and political clout got prime jobs in the various departments of the Jharkhand State Government.

Such Government jobs at Jharkhand state offers good compensation, job-security, power, prestige, the additional but high unmentionable perks, all these and much more that too without the additional pressure to performance.

Perhaps this is the only force why the nascent tribal state continues to lag far-far behind in the Economic Developmental Race, notwithstanding the tall claims put forward by Leaders and their cronies.

The involvement of big Cat’s restricted the Vigilance Bureau was to go smoothly in investigation. The delay in part of the JPSC to support with the needed documents, the missing examination papers, number of absconders, behind the scene politics and other paramount pressures, etc were the main hurdles before the Bureau.

The Vigilance Bureau then headed by DG Niyaz Ahmed and case was handled by DIG M V Rao and his entire team encountered during the course of investigation of JPSC Scam and the team had done a really commendable and praiseworthy work despite of negative conditions.

As time passes the Officers transferred and many retired so the process get slowed without reaching on its logical conclusion in the near, ultimately justice prevailed and Jharkhand High Court Directed CBI to investigate into the matter.

Dheeraj Kumar, one of the key accused in the JPSC recruitment scam came out with ingenious ways to fill his account with ill-gotten money. With the active assistance from many corrupt officials working in JPSC. In October last year, Dheeraj Kumar was arrested from Ratu Road Ranchi by the Vigilance Department. He was remanded to judicial custody after he was produced before the Vigilance Court.

Mastermind Dheeraj Kumar is a technocrat who was a Director Global Informatics a Ranchi based private firm involved with a job of coding and encoding of aspirants answer-sheets for the examinations taken by JPSC for the appointment of primary teacher.

Vigilance investigated that JPSC and Global Informatics inked a contract to undertake the job of pre and post examination work for the said appointment. His company was responsible for the encoding of secret codes for each candidate and later decoding the secret code for the preparation of the list of successful candidates.

As per Vigilance report, Dheeraj Kumar altered the codes to favor of the candidates who came to him through his network in JPSC and offered him hefty money for the services.

The charges states, “His Company initially entered into contract to oversee the appointment of Primary School Teacher, but the JPSC Secretary Alice Usha Rani extended his services to the conduct of Second Civil Services Examination. Interestingly she did not take necessary approval from her superiors for the wrong extension of his services.”

Thus, Dheeraj Kumar is also accused of fudging the secret numeric codes of the candidates who had taken the JPSC Civil Services Examination conducted in the year 2007-08. His name came up when Vigilance investigating after resurface of large-scale tampering of the candidates’ answer-sheets and mark-sheets for the First and Second JPSC Civil Services Examinations.

Dheeraj Kumar’s modus operandi:

The Charges framed by Vigilance Department against Dheeraj Kumar states:

Dheeraj changed the secret numeric codes given to the candidates to support the candidates who paid him for his services.The secret numeric codes of these paying candidates were revealed clandestinely to them, thereby enabling them to find their way into the services of Primary Teachers’ Job and even Civil Servants’ Job with the corrupt mandarins of JPSC, who were guiding Dheeraj Kumar all along the way.

He also altered the secret codes in such a manner that those who had cleared the competitive examinations were declared ‘unsuccessful’ while the candidates who paid, they were declared ‘successful’ in spite of securing lesser marks in the examination. Thus he rigged the marks of the candidates.

Vigilance report also alleged that Dheraj Kumar has changed the numeric codes of candidates belonging to the reservation category including SC,ST,OBC and Handicapped Candidates with the candidates of General Category; that kind of fraud at the application level denied many of the candidates the opportunity to get selected into merit list .

Meanwhile, another key accused in JPSC recruitment Scam, Radha Gobind Nagesh, a former member JPSC, who still continues to elude the Police and remains an absconder.

Other accused that includes former JPSC Chairman Dilip Prasad, members Shanti Devi ,Gopal Prasad Singh and former JPSC Secretary Alice Usha Rani are in Judicial custody in Birsa central jail Ranchi  after a FIR was filed on 9th June 2011.

The case has taken an important turn as Jharkhand High Court directed the CBI to investigate into the JPSC recruitment by giving 12 examination to be scaned so justice is  around the corner.CBI has already filed the FIR on the basis of the previous investigation it is expected that CBI will come with its progress report by November as directed by High Court.