Karnataka PSI exam scam: Gravity of wrongs more serious than crimes punishable with death: court

The CID arrested Hagaragi on April 29 from Maharashtra. Her bail plea and those of others, including a Karnataka State Reserve Police Assistant Commandant Vaijanath Revoor who was to provide security but allegedly facilitated the cheating at the exam centre, were rejected by Sessions judge Hemavathi over the last week.

“The gravity of the offence and its impact on society at large is to be viewed seriously, the meritorious candidates who took the examination have suffered due to this act of the petitioner and other accused persons,” the court said while rejecting the bail plea of Hagaragi.

“It has a great impact on the upliftment of the entire society at large who expect transparency in relation to recruitment for a government job. Of course, none of the offences is punishable with death or imprisonment for life but the gravity of the offence committed by the accused persons is more than that of the offence which is punishable with death or imprisonment for life,” the court observed.

The court also rejected Hagaragi’s plea to be given special consideration as a woman.

“On perusal of the materials on record at this stage, there is a prima-facie material to show that this petitioner [Hagaragi], along with other accused persons, made the recruitment process system to the post of PSI a commercial transaction, not employment, and they have shaken up the entire recruitment system by malpractice, fraud and conspiracy,” the court said.

In the course of the hearings, state prosecutors told the court that 75 per cent of the 545 candidates selected to be Sub-Inspectors were involved in malpractices.

The Karnataka government annulled the results of exam last month after the CID reported large-scale rigging.
The scam surfaced after it was found that one of the selected candidates at Kalaburagi, Veeresh K, who obtained 121 marks in the exam had only answered questions for 31.5 marks in the objective section. Many candidates who were not selected approached the government after the news of the recruitment of a candidate who had answered only 21 questions spread on social media.

A total of 545 candidates were selected in January 2022 from among 54,287 candidates who took the written exam on October 3, 2021 (from a total of 1.5 lakh aspirants). As many as 42 candidates who appeared for the exam have been arrested by the CID so far.