The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Tuesday transferred the investigation into the 2019 Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission (TNPSC) Group IV services examination scam, from the CB-CID, to the CBI.
A Division Bench of Justices Pushpa Sathyanarayana and P. Velmurugan directed the CBI to conduct a free and fair investigation in the case and file a chargesheet as early as possible.
The court passed the order in the petition filed in 2020 by I. Mohamed Razvi of Madurai. The petitioner had sought a CBI probe into the examination scam. He said that the TNPSC Group IV services examination held in 2019 was marred by malpractices.
In the 2019 Group-IV examination, the accused persons had given special pens with vanishing ink to the candidates to fill up the answer sheets. The ink would disappear in two to three hours and then the accused would fill up the answer sheets with the correct answers.
The CB-CID had registered a case on the malpractices that took place in Rameswaram and Keelakarai taluk in Ramanathapuram district. The offence was committed by a few persons in connivance with a record clerk and a typist of the TNPSC.
The accused, with dishonest intentions, had enticed 99 candidates with the promise of securing jobs for them and collected money for the same. Earlier, the CB-CID, in a status report, told the court that a total of 118 persons were arrested that included 98 candidates, two TNPSC staff and a van driver. One candidate died due to COVID-19.
