Aiims entrance doctored: CBI

An inter-state network of racketeers, who manipulated the All India Institute of Medical Sciences’ (Aiims) May 8 entrance examination, had helped several candidates qualify and some even get high ranks on the merit list in lieu of money, a probe has revealed.

An inter-state network of racketeers, who manipulated the All India Institute of Medical Sciences’ (Aiims) May 8 entrance examination, had helped several candidates qualify and some even get high ranks on the merit list in lieu of money, a probe has revealed.

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The network had been busted by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday.

The candidates had allegedly not answered a majority of the questions asked in the test, said a CBI official on condition of anonymity.

“Some candidates, who appeared in the Aiims PG exam on May 8, answered only a few questions and left most of the OMR (optical mark recognition/reader) sheet blank, but have secured high positions in the merit list published by
Aiims on May 27,” the official said.

The merit list had the names of 1,078 candidates. The CBI’s searches yielded several documents including original mark sheets, image of OMR Sheets of suspected candidates, computer files relating to the Aiims examination and blank cheques of suspected candidates.

After a scrutiny of these documents, the CBI found that two employees of a private firm, Pearls Technologies, had darkened the ovals in the OMR sheets, which were left unanswered by the candidates.

Pearls Technologies had been contracted by the examination authorities for result processing including manufacturing and scanning of OMR sheets.

“This was in lieu of huge bribes paid to the racketeers’ network by several candidates that it had contacted,” the official said.

The CBI has nabbed seven members of the racketeers’ network, including its alleged kingpin Mahipal Singh, a radiologist based in Agra.

Singh had finished his PG course from Aiims last year, officials said.

“The candidates were told to leave the space marked for answers empty on the OMR sheets, which were taken out by the private firm’s two accused employees while Mahipal Singh would mark the correct answers,” the official said.
Two senior employees from Pearls technologies are also involved in the racket, the CBI said.

CBI spokesperson Dharini Mishra said the agency had intimated Aiims authorities about the findings.

Aiims spokesperson YK Gupta said the institute was examining the CBI’s findings and would issue a formal response on Tuesday.

Besides the Aiims exam, the racketeers’ network had also allegedly manipulated the examination process of the All India Pre-Veterinary test held on May 14 conducted by the Veterinary Council of India for bachelor courses in Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry, the CBI official said.