JOIN USThe Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday questioned Sify Technologies chief operating officer C R Rao in connection with the Staff Selection Commission paper leak case, days after registering a case in the incident.
The agency had earlier registered an FIR against 17 people, including 10 employees of Sify, in connection with the paper leak and carried out searches at 12 locations, including in four offices of the Sify Technologies Pvt Ltd in Chennai, Noida, Mumbai and New Delhi, besides the residence of one of its employees, Sant Prasad Gupta in the national capital.
It is claimed that the paper of the second tier of the Combined Graduate Level (CGL), 2017, the exam to which took place on February 21, 2018, and its answers were reportedly leaked and went viral on social media before the examination began.
Sify was entrusted with various duties in conducting the examination, which included the identification and preparation of test centres across the country, preparation of question paper sets, sanitising computers and the lab used in the examination, to prevent any communication from the computers used by examinees.
CBI officials said Rao was quizzed about the details of staff who dealt with the exam.
He is also learnt to have been asked about the back-end team that uploaded the question paper before the exam began. The agency also conducted fresh searches at the Sify's office in Mumbai.
According to the FIR, the first level of the examination had taken place in August last year and the candidates who had cleared the cut-off list had appeared for the second level of examination (Tier II) between February 17 and February 22 this year.
It was found that question paper was uploaded by the central examination back-end team of Sify in Chennai between 9.30 am and 10 am.
The question pack activation passwords were then sent to site supervisors who communicated to the examination controller and the venue-specific question papers were downloaded and activated using examination interface.
Screenshots revealed that they belonged to seven candidates who have been named in the FIR.