Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee president A Revanth Reddy on Thursday appeared before Hyderabad police’s special investigation team (SIT), which is probing the question paper leak case in connection with Telangana State Public Service Commission (TSPSC) recruitment tests.
Reddy who had earlier alleged the involvement of Telangana information technology minister K T Rama Rao’s personal staff in the case was served a notice by SIT on Monday to “submit evidence to substantiate his allegations.”
Reddy deposed before SIT chief A R Srinivas and submitted the evidence he had to substantiate his allegations.
Confirming the development, the PCC chief said with due respect to the law, he had “submitted the information available with him to the SIT authorities.”
“Surprisingly, the SIT officials have not served similar notices to minister K T Rama Rao, who had openly declared that two TSPSC employees were involved in the question paper leak case,” he claimed while talking to the reporters.
Reddy sought to know the source of information based on which KTR had blamed the two TSPSC employees . “Just like the SIT served notices on me, it should also issue similar notices to KTR and question him,” he said.
“It is obvious that the government is trying to intimidate us by issuing notices to us for speaking out with whatever evidence we had in the question paper leak case,” Reddy said.
{{/usCountry}}“It is obvious that the government is trying to intimidate us by issuing notices to us for speaking out with whatever evidence we had in the question paper leak case,” Reddy said.
{{/usCountry}}Stating that the TSPSC was like a temple for the unemployed youth, the PCC chief said it had become a “political rehabilitation centre”. “The Bharat Rashtra Samithi government has not taken any steps to curb the question paper leak but betrayed faith of lakhs of unemployed youth. The TSPSC authorities made a mockery of the recruitment examinations,” he alleged.
Reddy reiterated the demand for sacking of KTR from the state cabinet and questioning of TSPSC chairman B Janardhan Reddy and secretary Anitha Ramachandran.
Ahead of the PCC chief’s appearance before the SIT authorities, the Hyderabad police kept several Congress leaders under house arrest to prevent them from going to the SIT office.
Meanwhile, the SIT on Wednesday took three more TSPSC employees into custody in connection with the question paper leak of several cases, a police official familiar with the development said.
While two of them D Ramesh Kumar and Shameem (who goes by one name) are regular employees of TSPSC, the third one – Suresh (who goes by one name) is an outsourcing employee, the official said, adding that the arrests are yet to be confirmed.
The SIT investigation revealed that all the three employees had appeared for group-1 examination (prelims), held on October 2022, without applying for leave and allegedly scored over 100 marks, after procuring question papers from main accused Praveen Kumar and Rajasekhar Reddy, both TSPSC employees.
The accused are likely to be produced before a court on Thursday, said an official.
The SIT probe had found that out of 20 employees of TSPSC who had appeared for group-I prelims, eight had qualified for the mains examination.
The commission last week cancelled group-I Prelims and three other exams after the paper leak allegations came to the fore.
Nearly 2.86 lakh aspirants of group I posts had appeared in group-I exam conducted on October 16, 2022. Of them, 121 candidates had scored more than 100 marks. The SIT will question all these candidates.