Karnataka Police CID arrests Maharashtra businessman for sheltering key accused in sub-inspector recruitment exam scam

Hagaragi, the owner and principal of the Jnana Jyothi English School in Kalaburagi, is accused of facilitating large-scale cheating in the police sub-inspector recruitment exam conducted on October 3, 2021, where the school was an examination centre.

The CID had obtained an arrest warrant for Hagaragi and three teachers from the Jnana Jyothi school on April 19 after they were reported to be absconding by the police.

Hagaragi and two of the teachers – Archana S and Sunanda S – who were invigilators for the police sub-inspector recruitment exam were tracked down in Maharashtra on Thursday night by the CID.

Police sources said Hagaragi and the two teachers were sheltered by Katgaon after they fled from Kalaburagi on April 12 after being called in for questioning by the CID with regard to the exam scam.

In all, five persons were arrested by the CID from Maharashtra in connection with the exam scam – with two of the arrested persons being those who sheltered the former BJP functionary and the two teachers.

Katgaon runs a pharmaceutical enterprise in Solapur, police sources said. The businessman’s sister Surekha Katgaon has been linked to the Congress party in local polls in Maharashtra in the past.

‘The Congress has been trying to politicise the police recruitment exam issue but we have acted without any bias,” Karnataka home minister Araga Jnanendra said on Friday. The home minister was earlier accused by the Congress party in Karnataka of attempting to protect the former BJP functionary Divya Hagaragi – whose home he had visited in February this year.

With the arrest of Hagaragi, and four others, the total number of arrests in the scam has risen to 22.

On Thursday, the CID arrested a government employee Jyoti Patil who allegedly helped one of the women candidates in the exam. The government employee Jyoti Patil is alleged to have been the provider of answers via a Bluetooth device to one of the candidates who appeared for the police sub-inspector recruitment exam at the Jnana Jyothi English School in Kalaburagi on October 3, 2021.

Jyoti Patil is alleged to have aided a woman candidate who obtained the third rank (among 25 women candidates selected from the Kalyana Karnataka region) in the police sub-inspector recruitment examination. The candidate answered only 11 questions for 16.5 marks but scored 101 out of 150 marks in the exam the CID probe has found.

The candidate who received assistance from Patil was among nearly 22 who got selected for PSI posts after writing their recruitment test at the Jnana Jyothi School run by Hagaragi, and her husband Rajesh Hagaragi.

The CID arrested Rajesh Hagaragi last week but his wife Divya, the school principal, had remained elusive.

As many as seven candidates who took the recruitment exam at the Jnana Jyothi School have been arrested by the CID so far on charges of cheating in the exam. Three teachers at the school who were invigilators for the exam have also been arrested. The school headmaster Kashinath is among those still being sought by the CID.

The prime accused who organized the rigging of the recruitment exam, R D Patil, a block president of the Congress party for the Afzalpur region in the Kalaburagi district, and his brother Mahantesh Patil have been arrested.

The exam scam emerged after a candidate Veeresh N, who obtained the seventh rank among 67 candidates selected from the Kalyana Karnataka region was found to have obtained 121 marks in the police sub-inspector recruitment exam despite answering only 21 out of 100 questions in an objective paper for 150 marks as per the carbon copy of his OMR sheet.

‘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,” says 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 120 marks for 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 recruitment exam for 545 police sub-inspectors – 438 across Karnataka and 107 in Kalyana Karnataka – was held on October 3, 2021, in 92 examination centres at Bengaluru, Mysuru, Mangaluru, Hubbali Dharwad, Kalaburagi, Davangere, and Tumkur. Nearly 54,000 candidates out of nearly 1.5 lakh applicants appeared for the recruitment exam.

The PSI recruitment exam scam turned into a political controversy with the opposition Congress party leaders from Kalaburagi accusing the BJP government of protecting the owner of the Jnana Jyothi School, Divya Hagaragi from being arrested.