Himachal Pradesh: The government has taken a big decision in the JOA IT paper leak case of the Himachal Pradesh Staff Selection Commission. The State Government has decided to suspend the functioning of Staff Selection Commission Hamirpur with immediate effect. In the public interest, all ongoing and pending recruitment processes have been put on hold until further orders.
The officers and employees working in the Commission will now report to the Officer on Special Duty. The government has appointed ADC cum ADM of Hamirpur as the officer on special duty of the commission. Along with this, the government has also relieved Dr. Jitendra Kumar, the secretary of the commission, and Sanjeev Kumar, the deputy secretary of their duties. These officers have been asked to report to the Personnel Department. The orders for the posting of these officers will be issued later. Chief Secretary RD Dhiman has issued these orders.
At the same time, the main accused woman, Uma Azad has also been suspended in the paper leak case. Commission Chairman Dr. Sanjay Thakur said that the senior assistant who leaked the JOA IT recruitment exam paper has been suspended. The police had arrested Commission’s senior assistant Uma Azad, her younger son Nikhil Azad, their house help Neeraj, and two candidates Tanu Sharma and Ajay Sharma, besides broker Sanjeev Kumar, in connection with the paper leak case. They have been sent on police remand till December 28 by the Hamirpur Court on Saturday. Now, arrests of other suspects may also happen in this case soon.
For the unversed, the paper was leaked on December 23, two days before the written examination of postcode 965 JOA IT recruitment of State Staff Selection Commission to be held on December 25. On the complaint of a candidate, they were arrested and the commission also canceled the exam. The commission had sought applications for 198 posts in May 2022. 121 more posts were added in October. For 319 posts, 1,03,344 candidates appeared for the exam in 476 exam centres. The government has now also constituted an SIT to investigate the matter.