Six rank winners in Karnataka police SI recruitment test among 12 arrested for exam fraud

As many as 11 of nearly 500 candidates who wrote the police sub-inspector recruitment examination last year with the Jnana Jyoti English School as their examination centre were chosen for recruitment to the police department earlier this year. However, a scam in the recruitment process emerged after a few candidates who wrote the exam discovered that some of those chosen for recruitment from Kalburagi had answered as few as 21 questions in the objective portion of the test but mysteriously ended up scoring as much as 121 marks out of 150 in the objective portion of the test which has 100 questions.

The post of police sub inspectors are highly coveted among young policemen already in service looking to obtain a higher ranking position without having to wait for promotions as well as rural youths who are freshers. As many as 54,051 candidates out of a total of over 1.5 lakh applicants got to write the PSI exam across 92 centres in Karnataka on October 3, 2021.

The six candidates arrested over the exam scam so far are Chetan Nandgaon (second rank), Veeresh N (seventh rank), Praveen Kumar (ninth rank), Vishal S (15th rank) and Arun Patil (17th rank) who were among 67 candidates selected in the provisional list under the merit list for the Kalyana Karnataka region (the backward Hyderabad-Karnataka region located in the north Karnataka).

The sixth candidate who has been arrested is Hayyali Desai who got the first rank among 12 in service policemen who were shortlisted from the Kalyana Karnataka region.

The second rank winner in the exam for the Kalyana Karnataka region Chetan Nandgaon (a jail warden) obtained 31.5 marks in the essay portion of the exam out of a total of 50 marks and obtained 127.5 marks in the objective part – where large-scale rigging is alleged to have happened – to get a total of 159 marks. The first rank winner for the Kalyana Karnataka region Bhagvantray Jogur obtained a total of 167.375 marks (38 for the essay and 129.375 in the objective portion).

The overall first rank winner in the PSI recruitment exam Kushal Kumar J obtained 167.75 marks (30.5 in the written part and 137.25 for the objective part).

The first-rank winner in the in-service category for the Kalyana Karnataka region Hayyali Desai, a gun man for the Congress MLA from Afzalpur MY Patil, obtained a total of 138.875 marks in the exam (with 17 marks in the written part and 121.875 in the objective part). Desai is among the six arrested.

The first rank winner in the in-service category for the whole of Karnataka, Gajendra B, got 155 marks in the exam (29 for the written portion and 126 for the objective part).

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The CID police are yet to ascertain if the exam scam played out across more than one exam centre in Karnataka or whether it was restricted to the Jnana Jyoti English School in Kalaburagi owned by a former BJP functionary Divya Hagaragi who is absconding while her husband Rajesh Hagaragi was arrested last week by the CID for involvement in the exam scam.

The five other candidates who were selected from the Jnana Jyoti English School exam centre for recruitment into the Karnataka police force is Roopa, a candidate from the non Kalyana-Karnataka category who obtained 42nd rank among women (128.625 marks including 92.625 in the objective part), Siddugouda from Kalyana Karnataka (22nd rank with 145.625 marks including 125.625 in the objective portion), Mallinath D (46th rank with 136.125 marks including 95.625 in objective), Shantibai (third rank among Kalyana Karnataka women with 127.25 marks including 101.25 objective) and Premila B (fourth rank among Kalyana Karnataka women with 125.625 mark – 97.125 in objective).

The CID probe has so far led to the arrest of three teachers from the Jnana Jyothi school who allegedly filled out the OMR answer sheets for some of the students after the exam. Three more teachers and the headmaster of the school Kashinath have sought bail along with the principal, the former BJP functionary Divya Hagaragi. The scam is alleged to have been masterminded at the local level in Kalaburagi by a contractor and local Congress politician R D Patil and his brother Mahantesh.

A Congress MLA from the region Priyank Kharge has questioned the police over the continuance of the head of the recruitment cell in his existing position despite the emergence of the recruitment scam.

“No candidate or invigilation or supporting staff who are found to have indulged in malpractice will go unpunished. The interests of genuine candidates will be fully protected,” the Karnataka director general of police Praveen Sood said in an official statement. “Further action on the exams will be taken only after CID completes its investigation and gives a conclusive report,” the DGP said.

The scam in the recruitment process emerged after a PSI post aspirant who had failed to gain admission obtained access to the copy of the original OMR (Optical Mark Recognition) answer sheet of the seventh rank winner Veeresh. It was found that as per the copy of the original OMR sheet for the objective portion of the test Veeresh answered only 21 questions out of a total of 100 but obtained 121.875 marks in the objective portion to secure the seventh rank in the exam. This resulted in many aspirants who did not make the cut petitioning the government.

Karnataka Home Minister Araga Jnanendra, who initially told the Karnataka legislature in March that there was no scam in the police recruitment, ordered a CID probe earlier this month. The preliminary CID probe has revealed that the candidate Veeresh and some others who took the exam at the Jnana Jyoti English School in Kalaburagi answered very few questions in the objective portion but scored very high marks and were chosen for recruitment.

“When the coded OMR sheet of the candidate Veeresh received at the police recruitment cell was compared with the OMR sheet that was provided for the candidate by members of the public, it was found that Veeresh had answered only 21 questions in the exam hall. The OMR sheet received at the police recruitment cell showed that he had answered all the 100 questions,” said a CID FIR in the case.

Each question carried 1.5 marks and the total available marks in the objective section was 150 marks.

“This candidate Veeresh answered only 21 questions but he got a total of 121 marks in the test and got selected and this is a cause for suspicion. Prima facie it seems that the candidate Veeresh joined hands with others and filled answers for questions that had been left blank in the OMR sheet,” the CID said.

The CID police have registered a case of forgery, fraud, cheating and criminal conspiracy.

Police sources said that candidates who had paid heavy amounts to middlemen – ranging up to Rs 50 lakh – were allotted the Jnana Jyothi school as the examination centre to take up the PSI recruitment exam and were helped by invigilators in the exam hall to score high marks in the objective portion.

“Prima facie it seems like the invigilators helped candidates score high marks,” police sources said.

The CID has now called for all 545 candidates who were chosen through the PSI exam to join the police force to appear before it for interrogation along with copies of their OMR sheets. The OMR sheets are being sent for forensic analysis to ascertain whether they were tampered.