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Controversy Over Transfer of IPS Officer Probing ‘Vyapam-Like Scam’ in Uttar Pradesh

Ayaskant Das |
The IPS officer had arrested 11 persons last week for their alleged role in the irregularities
Controversy Over Transfer of IPS Officer Probing

New Delhi: Even as a final verdict is awaited from the Supreme Court into alleged irregularities in the recruitment of 69,000 assistant teachers in Uttar Pradesh, the transfer of Prayagraj Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Satyarth Aniruddha Pankaj, last week has triggered a fresh controversy.

Pankaj, who had arrested 11 persons last week for their alleged role in the irregularities, was shunted out on June 16, along with 13 other IPS (Indian Police Service) officers. He has been kept in the waiting list without any new assignment, even as he has tested for positive for COVID-19, while there have been demands from various quarters for scrapping the examination results altogether.

The results for the examination, conducted on January 6, 2019 for recruitment of 69,000 assistant teachers into the Basic Education Department of UP, had been declared last month, after a case challenging the procedure was resolved by the Allahabad High Court.

It has been alleged that answer sheets for the examination had been leaked beforehand to certain candidates in lieu of cash. Besides, it has also been alleged that in certain cases, an overwhelming number of candidates have been selected from a single family or a single examination centre. Reports have also claimed evidence of successful candidates having contiguous examination registration numbers.

The issue has taken a political colour with the state unit of the Congress alleging the involvement of various functionaries of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in “irregularities” in the conduct of the examination. The party has demanded that a fresh examination be held in a free and fair manner.

A few days before Pankaj’s transfer, on June 9, the state government, led by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, handed over investigations of the case to the Special Task Force (STF) of the police department.

Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra tweeted, expressing surprise over Pankaj’s transfer soon after news about it circulated on the social media.

“He has taken the lid off such a huge scam, investigations should not be hampered owing to his departure. Whatever be the reason, officers like him who carry out their duties faithfully and fearlessly should receive full public support [translated from the original tweet in Hindi],” she tweeted.

She had also, in the past, compared the alleged irregularities to the Vyapam scam that had rocked the BJP-led Madhya Pradesh government in 2013.

Meanwhile, various candidates who had appeared in the examination have also taken to social media to protest against the transfer of Pankaj from Prayagraj (earlier Allahabad).

On June 4, Pankaj, a 2010-batch IPS officer, had arrested 11 persons, including a certain KL Patel, a rich businessman with political connections who, as per sources, was also allegedly involved in the Vyapam scam in Madhya Pradesh. Police had recovered Rs 22 lakh in cash and two SUVs (sports utility vehicles) from the possession of those arrested.

These arrests made by Pankaj, however, were not the first in the case.

Soon after the examination was completed, that is, on the night of January 6, 2019, the STF had registered an FIR in the Hazratganj police station of Lucknow, naming 14 persons as accused in irregularities in the conduct of examinations. Nine persons had been arrested and 13 bank cheques of varying amounts, allegedly made towards procuring the answer sheets in advance, were also recovered from them, apart from other incriminating evidence.

Subsequently, on the complaint of several other candidates, FIRs were also registered in Naini and Karnalganj police stations of Prayagraj, where the Examination Regulatory Authority of the Department of Basic Education is headquartered. Another FIR was registered in a police station in Mirzapur.

A senior IPS officer of UP cadre, Amitabh Thakur, has filed a case in the court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate of Prayagraj demanding that directions be issued to the police for registration of an FIR too. The matter is pending in the court.

“The case should be handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation now, since it is an agency that has the technical wherewithal to conduct an investigation of this nature. The manner in which there have been numerous arrests pertaining to answer paper leaks, it will be very difficult to ascertain the candidates who got selected without the use of malpractice. It will be judicious to scrap the examination,” Thakur told the Newsclick.

The state government is, meanwhile, keen on selecting candidates as per results of the examination held on January 6, 2019.

On June 12, a division bench of the Allahabad High Court vacated an interim stay order that had been imposed on the selection process barely a week earlier by a single-judge bench. The stay was vacated after the UP Examination Regulatory Authority challenged the order of the single-judge bench.

When contacted by Newsclick, the Director-General of School Education in Uttar Pradesh, Vijay Kiran Anand, refused to comment on the matter, saying that the case is sub-judice in the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court has sought the response of the UP government on a bunch of petitions wherein it has been alleged that it had been arbitrarily decided – and that too a day after the conduct of the examination – to increase cut-off marks for the general and reserved category students from 45% and 40%, respectively, to 65% and 60%.

“There are two issues involved in the matter. One, the examination was not conducted in a transparent manner. There seems to be the involvement of staff of senior BJP leaders in the scam. Second, the manner in which cut-off marks were increased arbitrarily has placed dalit and OBC (other backward classes) candidates in a disadvantageous position,” said Ajay Kumar Lallu, president of the Uttar Pradesh state unit of Congress.

Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati has also slammed the state government over the slipshod manner in which investigations have been conducted into the alleged scam and has demanded an impartial enquiry.

Despite repeated calls and text messages, UP’s Basic Education Minister, Satish Chandra Dwivedi, was not available for comments. In a press conference held in Lucknow last week, he had alleged Opposition political parties of attempting to derail the recruitment procedure.

“There are some people whose family business is corruption and scams. It is not part of their imagination that such a huge recruitment process or job giving exercise can be done without corruption. They are derailing the recruitment process,” the minister had said in the press conference.

The writer is an independent journalist.

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