5 min readLucknow, New DelhiNov 15, 2024 03:58 PM IST
First published on: Nov 15, 2024 at 04:20 AM IST
At a noisy traffic junction in the heart of Lucknow, behind a tangle of cables, is the two-room “main office” of TSR Data Processing, the private firm at the centre of a contentious recruitment drive for key administrative positions in the secretariats of the UP Legislative Assembly and Council.
This is just one of the 10 addresses in two states linked to the private firms involved in the recruitment that prompted the Allahabad High Court to order a CBI probe, an investigation of RoC records by The Indian Express shows. This newspaper visited all the listed addresses to meet the owners of these recruitment firms — and hit a deadend at each of them.
TSR Data Processing Ltd: Records show that TSR was incorporated in July 2010 by Ram Beer Singh and Satya Pal Singh along with Mohd Tariq who is now not a part of the firm.
The Indian Express visited the “main office” on the second floor of Adarsh Complex at Engineering College Chauraha and met the two employees posted there.
“We are a manpower supplier to government departments and other organisations. Nearly 1,500 workers have been outsourced by our company so far. We are also involved in recruitment. Our directors come to the office only occasionally,” said one employee who identified himself as Deepak.
The Indian Express also visited TSR’s other Lucknow addresses listed in RoC records of Satya Pal Singh and Ram Beer Singh. The premises at both these addresses were occupied by other persons. Ram Beer and Satya Pal did not respond to requests for comment — at least five of their relatives got jobs in the Assembly secretariat.
On April 6, 2021, a UP Police Special Investigation Team (SIT) arrested Satya Pal and Ram Beer for their alleged role in the recruitment of Village Development Officers in 2018-2019. Along with them, another person identified as Ram Pravesh Yadav was also arrested. All three are on bail. Yadav is the owner of Rabhav Ltd, according to RoC records.
A senior police officer, who was part of the SIT at the time, told The Indian Express that Ram Beer, Satya Pal and Ram Pravesh had also allegedly “confessed to their role in the manipulation of results in the Assembly and Council recruitment as well”. “But the SIT can only investigate matters referred by the state government which, in this instance, was the other recruitment case,” the officer said.
Rabhav Ltd: Rabhav was originally incorporated in August 2015 in Delhi as Rabhav Technologies Ltd and renamed as Rabhav in March 2017. Ram Pravesh Yadav is the majority stakeholder, and his wife a stakeholder at incorporation. Yadav is the nephew of Shambhu Singh Yadav, an influential IAS officer who retired recently as Deputy Lokayukta. His wife was selected to the post of Review Officer in the UP Legislative Council.
The Indian Express visited three Lucknow addresses listed in the name of Ram Pravesh in RoC documents. At one of them, in Aliganj, local residents said “there is no one by that name here”. At another address in Gomti Nagar, the trail led to a hotel. “Ram Pravesh sold this property to us many years back,” a hotel employee said. The third address in Gomti Nagar Extension could not be traced.
Rabhav’s address is listed at Delhi’s Mangolpuri Industrial Area but an employee of another company on the premises said, “Rabhav moved from here nearly four years ago.” A Delhi address listed at Vishal Tower in Janakpuri “has been locked for over a year”, local residents said. Another Delhi address, at Pitampura, was found to be occupied by a man who said he had “no information” about Rabhav.
Ram Pravesh did not respond to requests for comment from The Indian Express.
Chatrashakti Info Solutions Pvt Ltd: This Lucknow firm conducted the typing test for the posts of Assistant Review Officer (ARO) and Additional Private Secretary (APS) for the Assembly. RoC records show that Puneet Kumar, one of the directors of Chatrashakti, is also a director along with TSR’s Satya Pal Singh and Ram Beer Singh in a Delhi-based company Dreamlogix Infotech Ltd. Apart from Kumar, Vivekanand Rai is also listed as a director in Chatrashakti which was incorporated in May 2019.
When The Indian Express visited the Lucknow address listed in RoC records for Chatrashakti, a man who identified himself as Shailendra Singh said, “Vivekanand and Puneet took this property on rent and were running the company from here. They left around a year ago.”
Responding to queries from The Indian Express, Vivekanand Rai of Chatrashakti said, “I had invested money in that company. The CBI had also asked me about this matter. The typing test was conducted at my company but I can’t say anything more.” Puneet Kumar confirmed his association with Chatrashakti but said that the firm “is not functioning now”.
Behind the shaded glass door is the two-room office of testing firm TSR Data Processing in Lucknow. (Express photo by Shyamlal Yadav) 
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