Gujarat ATS arrests 30 GPSSB aspirants  in junior clerk exam paper leak case

Of the 30 arrested, eight each were nabbed from Chhota Udepur and Dahod, four from Aravalli, three from Sabarkantha, two each from Mahisagar and Mehsana, and one each from Junagadh, Gandhinagar, and Kheda. Among the 30 accused are seven women candidates. The arrested candidates are in the 21-39 age group, with only 10 of them in their 30s.

The ATS told the court that the accused had been arrested based on the “documentary and technical evidence” gathered from the previously arrested 19 accused in the case. “The arrested candidates were the beneficiaries in the paper leak, which was done by Bhaskar Choudhary of Stackwise Technology in Vadodara and their associates. Bhaskar and his associates had asked these examinees for the original documents and had verified their identities. Each candidate had promised to give Rs 10 lakh to Rs 15 lakhs, but did not hand over the amount. They had given blank cheques to the agents in Gujarat as a security with the signatures of either their own or their parents. The cheques along with other technical aid helped us to find the candidates,” said SN Chaudhary, deputy superintendent of police at Gujarat ATS. Bhaskar’s  Stackwise  Technology was to conduct the GPSSB January examination.

The arrested candidates, however, never got the leaked paper as ATS raided Stackwise Technology office in Vadodara the night before the exam, the DySP said. “Since the offence was registered months before the enforcement of the new paper leak Act, the punishment will not be in accordance with the act. It will primarily be the decision of the Gujarat Panchayat Service Board,” he said.

According to Chaudhary, there are more involved in the case who will be arrested soon.

The ATS, which did not seek remand of the accused in the case, has booked all the accused in the same FIR filed as against the agents under various sections of the Indian Penal Code for criminal breach of trust (406), criminal breach of trust in respect of that property entrusted to a person, merchant or agent (409), cheating (420) and criminal conspiracy [120(b)]. “Since the ATS did not seek remand of the accused and there was no bail application from them, they were sent to judicial custody. The ATS case is based on its investigation of the network of the paper leak agents that was traced to a printing press at Hyderabad in Telangana. The arrest of the 30 candidates will act as a deterrent in the future for those who consider indulging in examination malpractices,” said Anil Desai, District Government Pleader, Vadodara.

Apart from Bhaskar, those arrested earlier include Ketan Barot, Jeet Nayak, Pradeep Nayak, Murari Kumar Videshi Paswan, Kamlesh Chaudhary, Mohammed Firoz Alam, Sarvesh Kumar, Mintu Kumar Rai, Mukesh Kumar, Prabhat Kumar, Aniket Bhatt, Raj Barot, Pranay Sharma, Hardik Sharma and Naresh Mohanty. While fifteen of them were caught on the night before the exam, four were caught during the course of the investigation.

According to the official statement, one of the prime-accused, Pradeep, who hails from Odisha, had contacted his friend Jeet Nayak, who worked at KL High Tech Press in Hyderabad and was the person who physcially leaked the paper from the press. Pradeep also contacted a friend, Saroj, in Odisha who ran coaching classes. Through him, Morari, Kamlesh, Firoz, Mintu Kumar, Prabhat and Mukesh Kumar—all natives of Bihar—”conspired and created a channel” and contacted Chaudhary and Barot through Mintu Kumar.

“It was Mintu Kumar who contacted Bhaskar Choudhary, the managing director of Pathway Education Services and Stackwise Technology in Vadodara, and Ketan Barot, the managing director of Disha Education, which has branches in Vadodara and Ahmedabad.”

The accused got together in Vadodara on the direction of Bhaskar and Ketan. Naresh, who hails from Odisha but resides in Surat, also joined the group in Vadodara, while the Gujarat agents—Hardik, Pranav, Aniket and Raj—were also called for the “meet-up”.