Under the Chhattisgarh Public Service Commission (CGPSC) recruitment fraud, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday submitted a 400 page chargesheet in the federal court against 13 suspects. Some of the individuals to be mentioned are the former CGPSC chairman, Taman Singh Sonwani, Aarti Wasnik and highly industrialized Shravan Kumar Goyal, former Bajrang Power and Ispat director. Others that are included are the son of Goyal Shashank Goyal, daughter-in-law Bhumika Katiyar and Sahil Sonwani.
Officials state that 12 of the accused are already incarcerated in jail and one of the accused, Utkarsh Chandrakar, is on the run. Chandrakar is cited to have played a major role in rigging the examination.
The case relates to the CGPSC recruitment exam, which was held in 2021 on 171 government positions. The initial test was conducted on February 13, 2022, and 2,565 applicants passed the preliminaries. After this 509 applicants passed the mains examination. In May 2023, a final shortlist of 170 candidates was published after an interview.
The CBI accuses that some of the close relatives of the then CGPSC chairman were unlawfully appointed at the senior administrative positions. These are the son Nitesh and daughter-in-law Nisha Kosale of Sonwani who were appointed to the position of Deputy Collector; the daughter-in-law Deepa Agjle of his brother who was appointed to the position of District Excise Officer; his sister daughter Sunita Joshi who was appointed to the position of the Labour Officer and his elder brother son Sahil Sonwani who was appointed to the position of the Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP).
Along with this, the son of an industrialist, Shravan Goyal and daughter-in-law Bhumika Katiyar were also appointed as the Deputy Collectors. The method of selection of close to 18 candidates was being claimed to be irregular leading to the petition being filed in court. That was followed by an investigation which was commissioned and the case was given by the state government to the CBI.
The probe found out that some of the short-listed candidates were associated with the CGPSC chairman, industrialists, and families of the Congress leaders which casts serious doubts on the integrity of the process of short-listing.
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