Corruption gets rly recruitment exam off track

The examinations were held at the Ghatkopar headquarters of the force on February 16 this year.

Mandya’s report has unearthed large-scale discrepancies in the process. A random sample study of 26 candidates has revealed that their total marks have come down after revaluation of their answer papers. Similarly, the marks of 33 candidates went up after revaluation; 38 GRP aspirants had their scores unchanged after re-examination of their respective papers.

A random sample of 103 cases also showed a variation of around four to five marks from previous tallies after a re-check of the papers. Mandya also observed that a candidate (chest number 3432) did not have the mandatory signature of the concerned police inspector on his answer-sheet. Candidates with chest numbers 4147 and 169 had submitted two answer-sheets each against their respective names. Marks were also given to wrong answers in a number of cases.

However, senior railway officials want the force to ignore the alleged discrepancies pointed out by Mandya in his report. They feel the lacunae are not serious enough to warrant the complete scrapping of the current merit list, which is now on hold.

Railway Police Commissioner Suresh Khopde confirmed that the GRP results have been on hold for the past six months.‘‘I have been posted here recently. I don’t know the details of what happened during the recruitment drive,’’ said the senior officer.

Early this year, discrepancies had also surfaced during the recruitment process for Mumbai police constables.