HPSC recruitment scam: HCS officer Anil Nagar dismissed from service

The Haryana Public Service Commission deputy secretary was arrested by the state Vigilance Bureau in November for taking money and manipulating marks of candidates who appeared in the recent dental surgeon written exam

Haryana Civil Services (HCS) officer Anil Nagar, who was recently arrested by the Vigilance Bureau for allegedly taking bribe to manipulate marks of candidates who appeared in the dental surgeon written exam conducted by the Haryana Public Service Commission (HPSC), was on Tuesday dismissed from service.

Haryana vigilance bureau officials taking away Haryana Public Service Commission deputy secretary Anil Nagar (centre) after presenting him before the judicial magistrate in Panchkula on November 20. (Sant Arora/HT file photo)

Nagar was posted as the HPSC deputy secretary when the vigilance officials arrested him on November 18.

Haryana chief secretary Sanjeev Kaushal issued Nagar’s dismissal orders under Article 311(2)(b) of the Constitution. The Article empowers the competent authority to dismiss, remove or reduce in rank persons employed in civil capacities under the union or state governments without conducting a departmental inquiry.

“Nagar has been placed under suspension with effect from November 18 since his arrest. There is not an iota of doubt that the defaulter has acted in the most reprehensible manner, which is not expected from a member of services,” the chief secretary’s order said.

“The defaulter has exhibited grave misconduct. Such immoral activities bring severe disrepute to the state government. His continuation in service will be detrimental to public interest and discipline,” the order read.

“Nagar was the custodian of all relevant records and there is no surety of sanctity of the record kept by him. Therefore, it is not possible to conduct the inquiry. The competent authority has the above reasons to believe to dispense with the departmental proceedings,” the order said.

The order said search at Nagar’s residence led to seizure of ₹12 lakh cash and during interrogation he confessed that he had parked money with his associate from whom Rs. 2.10 crore cash was recovered.

“Thus, ₹3.5 crore cash has been seized so far during the course of investigation. Further, a hand-written list of roll numbers of the HCS exam was recovered from Nagar’s wallet. This included the roll numbers of successful candidates. Nagar stated that he had asked for a random check of OMR sheets on pretext of verifying the correctness of the scanning and made sure that the list included the roll numbers of the candidates whose scores had to be altered,” the order said.

It said interrogation of three accused has revealed that around 30-32 candidates were involved in all as per the accused (15 HCS candidates, of whom five passed, and 17 dental surgeon candidates of whom 13 had passed).