Hyderabad: Telangana high court on Wednesday allowed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking the transfer of the TSPSC case from the Special Investigation Team (SIT) to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for impartial investigation.
The court directed the registry in this regard.
Earlier, a chargesheet filed by SIT of Telangana Police revealed that over Rs 1.63 crore was transacted for buying and selling of question papers of various exams conducted by the TSPSC.
Nearly three months after the sensational paper leak case came to light, the SIT filed the preliminary charge sheet in Nampally Criminal Court. A.R. Srinivas, Additional Commissioner of Police, Crimes & SIT, said that as of now, 49 accused individuals have been arrested in connection with the case, while one person, currently residing in New Zealand, is still at large.
On March 11, 2023, a complaint was lodged by Satyanarayana, Assistant Secretary of TSPSC, leading to the registration of a case at Begum Bazar Police Station. The case was later transferred to Central Crime Station (CCS), Hyderabad, where it was re-registered. A dedicated team was assigned to support the investigating officer, P. Venkateshwarlu, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP), SIT, CCS, Hyderabad.
During the course of the investigation, it was revealed that accused number one Pulidindi Praveen Kumar, an Assistant Section Officer (ASO) and (PA) to the Secretary of TSPSC, along with A-2 Atla Raja Shekar, an outsourcing employee working as a System/Network Administrator in TSPSC, conspired and gained unauthorized access to the confidential section’s computer which stored and compiled question papers for various exams. They downloaded/copied the question papers of Group – I, Divisional Accounts Officer (DAO), Assistant Executive Engineer (AEE), and Assistant Engineer (AE) exams onto their pen drives. Subsequently, they shared these question papers with multiple candidates through intermediaries to make illicit profits, the official said.
With inputs from IANS