Monday Musing
[ Bengia Ajum ]
The one thing that is worrying the majority of Arunachalees is the possibility of the Arunachal Pradesh Public Service Commission (APPSC) paper leak scandal going the Rs 1,000-crore PDS scandal way. In 2004, when the PDS scam was first exposed, it had rocked the state. The SIC investigated the cases and some arrests were made by it. Interestingly, Mayank Sheel Chohan, a 1998-batch UT cadre IPS officer who had headed the SIC for a long time when the PDS scam was investigated, was sacked by the government of India in 2017 after he was found “not fit” to continue in the service due to “non-performance.”
Over the last few years, almost everyone seems to have forgotten this case. The last time the PDS scam was in the news was probably in December 2017, when in a tweet Chief Minister Pema Khandu announced that he had recommended the multi-crore PDS scam case to the CBI for investigation. Not much has been heard about the case since then. Apart from making a few arrests, the case did not see any particular outcome. In fact, in certain cases, there was allegation of this case being misused to target political opponents.
The APPSC paper scandal came into public limelight when whistleblower late Gyamar Padang exposed the deep rooted corrupt nexus that prevailed in the commission. The scandal hit the soul of the state and the youths have been left deeply frustrated and angry. The SIC, which first investigated the case, made several arrests, including many serving officers. However, due to the demand placed by several groups, including the Pan Arunachal Joint Steering Committee (PAJSC), which was spearheading the movement against the APPSC paper leak scandal, the state government handed over the case to the CBI. In October 2022, the CBI took over the Arunachal Pradesh Public Service Commission (APPSC) assistant engineer examination question paper leak case. It registered an FIR and started an investigation. Later, all cases were handed over to the CBI. Since the premier investigation agency took over the case, there has not been any major development. With the CBI mostly operating from Guwahati, the information source has dried up. Also, the name of one of the SIC officials, Bumcho Krong, who was initially deputed to the CBI, got dragged into the mysterious death of former APPSC official Tumi Gangkak. This also affected the pace of the investigation.
In the meanwhile, many of the members of the PAJSC were either arrested or under the radar of the police for their alleged involvement in the 72-hour bandh call. The faces of PAJSC – Techi Puru and Tadak Nalo – were on the run for a long time after the police had booked them under the APUAPA. Since then they have got reprieve from the court. But there is no denying that this whole episode has hurt the morale of the PAJSC members and the movement is slowly losing steam. Truly speaking, the movement started to take the wrong turn when people with dubious characters started to hijack the movement. Most of these people were mostly concerned about themselves and not the APPSC scandal in the true sense. Their press briefings were mostly like, “hum yeh, hum woh, hum usse nahi darta, etc.” Instead of focusing on the issue, the characters became the centre of attention and this is when movement started to lose direction. Saying this, one cannot deny the fact that the PAJSC for a long time ran a very successful anti-corruption movement and captured the imagination of the entire Arunachal. People saw hope in it and the government feared it. Perhaps it went wrong somewhere and hopefully they will introspect. If the APPSC paper leak scandal has to reach a logical conclusion, the PAJSC will have to revive and restart the fight. Or else this will become the next PDS scandal and will be lost in oblivion.
