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26 Assam officers take handwriting test after civil service cash-for-jobs scam
Some 250 candidates were selected for the civil, police and allied services in 2015. The scam was exposed after the arrest of an assistant engineer, caught red-handed accepting a bribe of Rs 10 lakh.
Twenty-six officers, whose appointment is under the scanner after the cash-for-jobs scam in the Assam Public Service Commission (APSC) was exposed, underwent a handwriting test at the state police’s special branch office in Guwahati.
The officers — 13 from Assam Civil Service (ACS), seven from Assam Police Service (APS) and the rest from allied services — include the son of former Congress minister Nilamoni Sen Deka and relatives of Union minister of state for railways Rajen Gohain and former RS member Nazneed Farooqui. They secured plum jobs soon after cracking the APSC-conducted civil services exam in 2015.
“Apart from being interrogated, the 26 officers were asked to append their signatures and write a short note on a blank sheet. Forensic laboratories outside the state will compare the papers with the handwritings in their exam answer scripts,” state director general of police Mukesh Sahay said on Friday.
Some 250 candidates were selected for the state’s civil, police and allied services in 2015. But the arrest of an assistant engineer, caught red-handed accepting a bribe of Rs 10 lakh from a lady dentist last year, opened a can of worms in the APSC.
APSC chairman Rakesh Kumar Paul and eight others were arrested. A raid at Paul’s residence and APSC office in Guwahati yielded two sets of answer scripts of three ACS officers. The trio was arrested as their selection was found to be based on duplicate assessment.
Police later seized more than 1,000 copies of answer scripts from the APSC office for examination and summoned the 26 officers. Preliminary probe revealed Paul used to conduct the exams of candidates who offered him cash — up to Rs 40 lakh — for jobs at his chosen place and time. This was in addition to their appearance at the designated exam centres. Paul would later swap scripts.
