Junior clerk recruitment exam: 16th accused who leaked paper from press in 10-day custody

The arrest of Shraddhakar alias Jeet Nayak is a breakthrough for the Gujarat ATS in the Gujarat Panchayat Service Selection Board (GPSSB) junior clerk paper leak case.

ATS Chief Deepan Bhadran told The Indian Express that with the arrest of Jeet, the investigators had been able to identify “the point of leak” and were now moving on to investigate who informed the accused about the printing press and the possible involvement of others in the leak.

“Jeet Nayak, whose original name is Shraddhakar, is a labourer at the KL Hi-tech printing press in Hyderabad. Nayak had physically leaked a print out of the paper by handing it to co-accused Pradeep Nayak, who is already in our custody. The agreed price at the first point of leak was Rs 7 lakh… following that, Pradeep brought the paper to Vadodara and it was meant to be leaked through the chain of accused,” Bhadran said.

Bhadran added that Jeet and Pradeep were known to each other as they hailed from the same town. The ATS had arrested Nayak, who had arrived with the paper at Stakewise Technologies, run by co-accused Bhaskar Chaudhary on the intervening night of Sunday.

According to the ATS, the conspiracy to leak the paper from the printing press in Hyderabad was hatched 20 days ago by the accused Pradeep Nayak and Murari, in connivance with Jeet Nayak. Pradeep and Murari had travelled to Hyderabad and stayed in Surat and Vadodara to meet co-accused and organise the leak.

The ATS has also informed the court that some of the accused had met at an eatery near the printing press to execute the plan. District Government Pleader of Vadodara, Anil Desai, who appeared on behalf of the ATS told the court.

“It is necessary to ascertain who provided the information to the accused about the printing press. Since the first copy of the paper that the accused received was delivered in print by a staff of the printing press, it has to be ascertained if more persons are involved in this leak, including government employees.”

ATS officials confirmed that the 15 accused arrested on Monday had agreed to pay an additional price of Rs 1 lakh each to the person handing over the paper in the chain.

While Pradeep Nayak paid Rs 7 lakh to Jeet, Murari Paswan and Naresh Mohanty were to pay Rs 5 lakh each to Pradeep and ther-eafter sell the paper to the “customers” for Rs 6 lakh and Rs 10 lakh respectively. The other accused were to help in selling the papers to candidates for Rs 12 lakh each. Officials of the ATS confirmed that a total of 65 copies of the paper were to be sold at various levels of the exchange.

Stakewise Technologies, which was to host the JEE entrance exam on Wednesday, has been cancelled as the centre. The aspirants who had been given Stakewise Technologies as the centre will now appear for the JEE exams at Harni’s Zaver Associates for the entrance exam.