TSPSC Paper Leak Case: Three More Persons Held By SIT, Total Arrests Rise To 12

During investigation, SIT has found that out of 20 employees of TSPSC who had appeared for Group-I prelims, eight had qualified for Group-I mains.

The Special Investigation Team (SIT) has arrested three more people, including a woman, in connection with the Telangana State Public Service Commission (TSPSC) question paper leak case.

According to the IANS report, two of them were identified as Shameem and D Ramesh Kumarare, employees of TSPSC. The police have also booked former employee Suresh.

The trio had allegedly scored over 100 marks in the Group-I Prelims exam conducted in October last year after procuring question papers from the main accused Rajasekhar Reddy and Praveen Kumar, both employees of TSPSC.

With this, the number of accused arrested has risen to 12. Earlier, nine people were arrested, including two TSPSC employees. On Thursday, they are likely to be presented in court. Another female TSPSC employee is reportedly being questioned in relation to the paper leak, IANS report said.

Meanwhile, police custody of the nine accused arrested earlier ended on Thursday. They will also be produced in court.

The SIT is likely to file a petition for further custody of the accused. It is looking to extract more information from the accused about the network.

During investigation, SIT has found that out of 20 employees of TSPSC who had appeared for Group-I prelims, eight had qualified for Group-I mains.

There have been allegations that several employees of TSPSC appeared in Group-I prelims conducted in October 2022. The commission last week cancelled Group-I Prelims and three other exams after the paper leak case came to light.

Nearly 2.86 lakh aspirants for Group I posts had appeared in the Group I exam conducted on October 16, 2022. Of them, 121 candidates scored more than 100 marks. The SIT plans to question all these candidates.

The TSPSC conducted the exam on March 5 for 833 vacancies of assistant engineer, technical officer, municipal assistant engineer, and junior technical officer in various engineering departments. Approximately 55,000 candidates took the written exam.

However, the Commission suspected leakage of the question paper and lodged a complaint with the police. On March 13, police arrested nine people, including two TSPSC employees.

According to the police, Rajasekhar, who worked as a network administrator at the TSPSC, copied question papers from some exams from a computer in the confidential section of the commission and passed them on to Praveen Kumar, who sold the papers to some aspirants.