[ Bengia Ajum ]
ITANAGAR, 15 Sep: The personnel department has informed that the inquiry into the role of APCS officer Kapter Ringu in the Arunachal Pradesh Staff Selection Board (APSSB) job-for-cash scam is complete and the report is “under submission.”
Responding to an RTI request filed by advocate Gyamar Maya, the department further said that the matter related to the then APSSB secretary SK Jain has been transferred to the ministry of home affairs (MHA) and “there is no correspondence available with the department at this juncture.”
However, the personnel department said that the suspension of Jain was revoked on 3 March, 2021.
“As per it, the suspension review committee of the MHA in its meeting held on 1 September, 2021 reviewed his suspension order, and the committee, after taking into consideration the facts and circumstances of the case, recommended that the suspension of SK Jain be revoked with effect from 3 March, 2021,” the department said.
A 2007 AGMUT cadre officer, Jain, who was the APSSB secretary when the job-for-cash scam emerged, was suspended a day after the recruitment examination for a number of LDC and JSA posts was cancelled. He had been placed under suspension (vide government of Arunachal Pradesh Order No PERS-14/2020/278, dated 3 March, 2020).
Kapter Ringu, who was posted as the APSSB undersecretary, was first placed under suspension from 20 February, 2020, following her arrest for alleged malpractice and corruption in the examinations conducted by the APSSB for the posts of UDC, LDC, JSA and others.
A case was registered with the Special Investigation Cell (SIC) and departmental proceeding under the CCS (CCA) Rules, 1965 was also initiated against her. She currently remains suspended.
The personnel department refused to share information regarding the 31-page two-member high-level inquiry committee report on the scam, citing Section 8 (H) of the RTI Act, 2005.
The state government had formed a ‘high-level inquiry committee’ to investigate the alleged malpractices in the recruitment examination. The committee was headed by the then principal resident commissioner of the state government in New Delhi, Jitendra Narain, and home commissioner Kaling Tayeng.
The SIC of the state’s vigilance department has chargesheeted 19 persons allegedly involved in the scam. The APSSB had conducted the examination for 125 state government posts on 2 February, 2020, across the state and declared the results on 14 February, shortlisting 315 candidates.
The board came under public scrutiny after a suspicious optical mark recognition (OMR) sheet was seen doing the rounds on social media soon after the results of the exam for lower divisional clerk (LDC), junior secretariat assistant (JSA), and other posts were published on its website.
None of the markers of the OMR sheet had been shaded in the multiple-choice answer sheet, implying that the candidate had left the answer sheet blank. However, the candidate was shortlisted for the skill test as per the result declared.
An investigation by the SIC revealed that numerous officials of the board were involved in the scam, in which candidates had paid bribes to secure LDC, JSA, and UDC jobs.
