A former Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, a ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and 34 others have been named as accused by the Assam Police in a charge sheet filed on Friday in connection with the police recruitment scam.
The 2621 page long charge sheet filed in court of the special judge under several sections of Indian Penal Code, Information Technology Act, Arms Act, Assam Police Act and Prevention of Corruption Act pertains to leakage of question paper of the written exam to recruit sub-inspectors in Assam Police.
The case was registered on the basis of an FIR lodged in September by Pradeep Kumar, the then chairman of the police recruitment board. Those named as accused include retired IPS officer Prasanta Kumar Dutta, senior police officer Kumar Sanjit Krishna and BJP leader Dibon Deka.
The written exam to select 597 sub-inspectors to Assam Police was cancelled on September 20 after the question paper got leaked.
Dutta and Deka had allegedly fleeced many candidates for the SI post by assuring jobs in lieu of cash. Deka is alleged to have procured the question paper ahead of the written test.
Police investigation revealed that a day ahead of the test, many candidates had taken a mock exam in a Guwahati hotel. Nearly 70 of these candidates were staying at one of the five hotels Dutta owns in Guwahati. Krishna is accused of having played a role in leaking the question paper.
As per the charge sheet filed in 87 days of the first arrest in the case, during investigation police teams seized Rs 6.26 crore in cash, 32 mobile phones, 11 digital video recorders, 5 laptops and 10 vehicles from 24 crime scenes spread across four districts.
The charge sheet names 183 persons as prosecution witnesses. Confessional statements of 5 accused persons and statements of 32 witnesses have been recorded by judicial magistrate.
The written exam to recruit sub-inspectors was conducted again in November and the results declared this month.
