Telangana cancels government recruitment exams following paper leak reports; BJP demands judicial probe

The Telangana state public service commission (TSPSC) has cancelled the Group-I recruitment and two other services exams following reports of exam papers leak.

The K Chandrashekar Rao administration is facing the Opposition heat and student, job aspirants’ ire over the leaks of the exam papers meant to recruit personnel for state government posts.

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Group-I exams are meant to recruit candidates for higher-level, coveted government jobs like deputy superintendent of police, deputy collector, commercial tax officer. The exam conducted in October was following the first Group-I posts notification issued by the KCR government since the separate state was formed in 2014. Many job aspirants had pinned hopes on a fair process.

Divisional Accounts Officer (DAO) and Assistant Executive Engineers (AEE) are the other exams that were cancelled by the TSPSC on Friday. DAO and AEE exams were held in February and January respectively, while the Group-I exam was held in October last year.

In a statement, the commission said that the decision was taken after examining the report of a Special Investigation Team, formed to probe the leaks, and the TSPSC’s internal inquiry. While the Group-I preliminary exam would be conducted afresh on June 11, the dates of other re-examinations will be announced later.

On Wednesday, the TSPSC cancelled the assistant engineers exam held on March 5, after a paper leak scandal emerged, posing a political problem too for the BRS government to deal with.

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At-least nine people, including a few TSPSC employees were arrested in connection with the AE exam paper leak.

A TSPSC employee Praveen Kumar allegedly leaked the AE exam paper to a school teacher L Renuka, who reportedly sold it to others for Rs 10 lakh each. Both were arrested by the police. The Congress, BJP and other parties are protesting, blaming the KCR government for the fiasco. Demonstrations were held at the TSPSC office in Hyderabad.

On Friday, Telangana BJP president Bandi Sanjay, along with Huzurabad MLA Eatala Rajender and others, were detained when they tried to lay siege to the TSPSC office.

The BJP is demanding a judicial probe by a sitting HC judge into the leakage of question papers of various recruitment tests. BJP workers and ABVP activists burnt the effigies of KCR in protest. Earlier, Bandi demanded the chief minister to react on the entire leakage episode and sack his son K T Rama Rao from the Cabinet.

“While the unemployed youth are worried over their future because of the question papers leakage, KCR’s family members have camped in Delhi to save his daughter K Kavitha from being arrested,” the Karimnagar MP criticised.