TNPSC scam: CCB report in 2 months

The division bench comprising Justice Huluvadi G Ramesh and Justice M Dhandapani, before whom the petition filed by Swapna, a transgender, came up on Thursday, the CCB made a submission that the forensic department has three divisions and out of them only one division has sent its report while two others haven’t.

“We are awaiting reports from other two divisions without which we cannot proceed with the case. Hence, we need at least six months’ time to file further report,” CCB said. But the bench on recording the submission, sought it to complete the process within the next two months. Originally, the plea was before a single judge bench, when Swapna, citing a private news channel report, which claimed that it was in possession of blank answer sheets of TNPSC sent by an anonymous person, alleged malpractices in the conduct of the exams.

The judge who heard the case on roping in the private channel, which exposed the scam, sought for a forensic report which confirmed that the sheets held by the channel were original sheets that were printed by TNPSC.

Taking the issue seriously, the court also restrained the government from appointing the candidates selected.

It may be noted that the petition, which was before the single judge bench was moved to the division bench based on a letter given by TNPSC to the Chief Justice seeking such a transfer as the contents in the plea were more in the nature of a public interest litigation. Also, CCB during its probe into the scam had had detained four people including a section officer of TNPSC.

In the remand application it had stated that out of the 74 Group-I officers selected after 2016 examinations, 62 were from a particular study centre. The police suspect that as much Rs 1 crore per candidate had been paid even to evaluators and question paper setters, besides TNPSC officials.