New in Northeast | Why govt recruitment process in Assam is under the scanner

The move to fill up 26,000 posts in government departments raised some serious questions, when accusations about brokers asking for large sums of money to ensure candidates secure jobs surfaced on Twitter.

On Sunday, the Assam Police announced the results of its latest recruitment process which selected 5,200 candidates for various posts. The recruits will be given their appointment letters during an official event in Guwahati this week.

This time, in Assam, while no such allegations were made and the entire process was deemed to be fair, it doesn't end there.  (HT File Photo/Representative Image)

The police recruitment drive has come under the scanner in the past over several incidents of leaked question papers, which has also led to the arrests of serving and retired senior police officers along with politicians.

However, this time, in Assam, while no such allegations were made and the entire process was deemed to be fair, it doesn't end there.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government’s move to fill up 26,000 Grade III and Grade IV posts in government departments raised some serious questions when accusations about the written tests surfaced on Twitter. These were about brokers asking for large sums to ensure candidates secure jobs. Victor Das, who runs a coaching institute in Guwahati, took to Twitter and made a series of allegations, tagging senior police officers and alleging that the malpractice also involved a former legislator.

A day after he made the accusations, Das was called to the Panbazar Police Station in Guwahati for questioning on September 9 and arrested the same night under several sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) including public mischief, criminal conspiracy, extortion and promoting enmity between groups. The police maintain that Das wasn’t able to substantiate his allegations with proof of wrongdoing.

He was presented in court a day later and remanded to seven days of police custody. On September 16, the Gauhati High Court granted him interim bail till September 29. Following his release, on Sunday, DGP Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta said that he has sought replies from the Guwahati police on Das’s arrest and also the charges labelled against him, which legal experts have termed unjustified and unrelated to the issue.

This is not the first instance of allegations of malpractice during government recruitment. The biggest such scam was unearthed in 2016 when the police arrested Rakesh Paul, the chairperson of Assam Public Service Commission (APSC) on charges of running a cash-for-job racket for years which allowed candidates to get jobs in the state police, bureaucracy, and other departments by paying large sums of money.

Following the revelations, the police lodged several cases and arrested 60 serving officers from the combined competitive examination (CCE), of the 2013 batch and seven members and officials of APSC. After the detection of anomalies, 39 officers were terminated from service.

While the terminated officers are out on bail, Rakesh Paul, who was arrested in 2016, is still in prison. In April, a special court framed charges against 67 accused, including Paul. Two other accused including Paul’s brother were declared as absconders and two more were acquitted because of the lack of enough evidence.

Following directions from the Gauhati High Court, the state government formed a commission comprising Justice (retired) Biplab Kumar Sharma to look into anomalies in the CCE 2013 examination and results. The commission submitted a 700-page report to the state government in April 2022. Though the report is yet to be made public, the commission’s findings are stated to detail irregularities in the answer sheets of many successful candidates.

Considering such history, the BJP government of Himanta Biswa Sarma took stringent measures to ensure that the process to fill up 26,000 posts was free of malpractices and that only eligible candidates get selected based solely on merit. To ensure that, the state government shut down internet services across Assam for several hours on dates when the written tests were held and also imposed Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure near the examination venues. The results of the written tests are expected in the coming weeks.

Incidentally, Assam is not the only state in the region where allegations of wrongdoings during the government recruitment process have surfaced. Last week, neighbouring Arunachal Pradesh was also rocked by news of the reported leakage of question paper of the recently conducted examination for the assistant engineer (civil) by the Arunachal Pradesh Public Service Commission (APPSC).

A first information report (FIR) in this regard was registered at Itanagar Police Station on September 10 and five persons have been arrested. Terming the allegations as frustrating, Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Pema Khandu stressed that stringent action will be taken against the guilty. An investigation into the allegations is underway.