TNPSC Group 2A scam accused bail petitions dismissed

The petitions were filed by Poornima Devi (25), Vignesh (28) and Narayanan alias Sakthi (36). Poornima Devi, a resident of Vellore has allegedly paid Rs 9 lakh to the middleman to clear the Group 2A exam in 2017 while Vignesh paid Rs 13 lakh to clear the same exam.

Poornima Devi was working as an assistant in Inspector General of Registration, Chennai and was arrested on February 13. Vignesh was working as an assistant in Home Department Secretariat in the city and was arrested on February 2. They were allegedly paid the bribe to Narayanan to clear the exam.

Further, both the officials have allegedly opted Rameshwaram as exam centre in 2017.

According to the prosecution, Narayanan and his close associate of Boopathy, another middleman in the scam had allegedly collected over Rs 60 lakh from 7 persons to secure jobs in various departments via TNPSC.

Defence counsels contended that the petitioners didn’t commit any crime and asked the court to release them on bail. Vehemently opposing the bail petitions, City Public Prosecutor Gowri Ashokan submitted that the investigations were at the initial stage so the petitions should be dismissed.

Accepting the City Public Prosecutor’s submissions, Principal District and Sessions Judge R Selvakumar dismissed the bail petitions filed by Poornima Devi, Vignesh and Narayanan respectively.

CB-CID Police department is investigating the case and it has been arresting middleman and officials who cleared exams by paying huge sums of money. Majority of the people who were arrested from various government departments had opted Rameshwaram as exam centre to clear the exam.