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Impersonator doubled demand to help nursing officers candidate land job at Chandigarh’s GMCH-32
Impersonator had initially sought ₹5 lakh from the nursing officers exam candidate land job as it was a contractual job at Chandigarh’s GMCH-32; but later raised demand to ₹10 lakh on learning that he will be hired on permanent basis
Probing into the use of unfair means for securing nursing officers’ job at Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH), Sector 32, police have found that the impersonator who was arrested on April 23 had initially sought ₹5 lakh from the candidate for helping him land the contractual job.
But on learning that GMCH will be recruiting nursing officers on permanent basis, he eventually doubled the amount to ₹10 lakh.
“It was a deal of ₹12 lakh. The middleman, Mukesh, was promised ₹2 lakh. The impersonator, Joginder Kumar, initially agreed to take the exam on behalf of the candidate, Rekhraj, in exchange for ₹5 lakh, as earlier it was a contractual job. But he later raised the demand to ₹10 lakh. The money, however, was not exchanged since Rekhraj could not take up the job after being exposed,” said a senior police officer privy to the probe.
Joginder, according to the police, was already recruited as a warden at AIIMS, Jodhpur, and had a monthly salary of over ₹70,000. All three accused are alumni of the same nursing college in Jodhpur.
Police are also investigating the suspected link of the middleman with other accused candidates in the case. “We have seized the laptop of the middleman and the other accused to unearth the racket. We are suspecting that he could be in touch with other candidates too. Their arrest will help us establish if they also had a link with Mukesh,” a cop said.
It was the huge difference in the weights of the candidate and his impersonator in the written test, held in August last year, that had first raised suspicions.
During the verification process after recruitment of the nursing officers, GMCH officials had also noticed discrepancies in the photograph and signature of Rekhraj, 30, hailing from Rajasthan.
He appeared to be different from the photograph on the application form, and the signature submitted at the time of filling the application also did not match the one on the admit card. There was also a significant difference in the facial features of the candidate who took the test and Rekhraj, who showed up to join as a nursing officer.
To check the possibility of more such cases, GMCH authorities had constituted a six-member scrutiny committee, headed by a senior professor, and comprising officials from the nursing department, recruitment branch and IT department, to collect details of all nursing officers selected on the basis of the written test.
As per hospital authorities, fingerprints and signatures were taken in the presence of the committee to compare them with the data collected during recruitment. But five candidates did not appear before the committee, and went on medical leave before resigning with a 24-hour notice.
Police have so far booked eight candidates in the case.
GMCH had issued advertisements for recruitment of 182 nursing officers in December 2021.
The recruitments were to be done on the basis of merit obtained in a written test and there was no provision of interview. An external agency was hired to conduct the written test, which was held at 39 centres in Chandigarh on August 28, 2022.
A total of 10,594 candidates had appeared for the test, where videography/photography, thumb impression and signature of each candidate were taken. The successful candidates were called for document verification and counselling that was held in three phases at GMCH. Subsequently, the selected candidates received an offer of appointment and were asked to report for medical examination.
