Bengaluru, May 4 In an embarrassment to the ruling BJP in Karnataka, a delegation of advocates on Wednesday lodged a complaint with the CID against state's Higher Education Minister and some officers in connection with the PSI scandal, and have sought a thorough investigation in the matter.
The delegation of advocates, under the banner 'We are against corruption', has submitted their complaint to the ADGP, CID. They have also urged the CID to probe into the alleged role of the son of a former Chief Minister in the PSI scandal.
The complaint underlined that so far, that the only candidates who have given money for jobs, or middlemen have been arrested so far, but the investigating authorities have not bothered to question Higher Education, IT and BT Minister C.N. Ashwath Narayan, ADGP, Recruitment, Amruth Paul and other officers.
As far as the Assistant Professor recruitment scandal is concerned, the police have arrested the Registrar of Dharwad University and a research scholar and stopped the investigation there, the complaint says.
A.P. Ranganath, who headed the delegation of advocates, stated that in both scandals the corrupts are protected. "The authorities must investigate the corrupt minister, officers and accused persons without buckling under pressure," he said.
"The candidates are alleging the role of a son of the former Chief Minister in the PSI scandal. He should also be investigated," he said.
Sources said that the 63 candidates have paid up to Rs 50 to Rs 70 lakh and they have not got jobs. Sources further said that the fingers are pointed at B.Y. Vijayendra, son of former CM B.S. Yediyurappa in this connection.
Suryamukundraj, an advocate, demanded immediate arrest of Ashwath Narayan in connection with PSI and Assistant Professor recruitment scandal.
The Karnataka government has announced re-exams for 545 PSI posts following the scandal. The exams were held for these posts on October 3, 2021. The government has also ordered comprehensive analysis of answer sheets of all candidates.
As many as 54,041 candidates appeared in the exams. The results were announced this January.
Later, the allegations surfaced that candidates who fared very poor in descriptive writing got maximum marks in Paper 2. However, the Police Department and the Home Minister denied any irregularities in PSI exams.
One of the candidates filed an RTI application seeking information on OMR sheets of one of the candidates. Though the application was rejected, the OMR sheet of the candidate appeared in public domain. Police sources say that Veeresh, the candidate, had attended only 21 questions in paper 2 but got 100 marks. He was given 7th rank.
Congress MLA Priyank Kharge had alleged that more than 300 of the 545 candidates had paid Rs 70 to 80 lakh bribe to officials and ministers to become PSI. Ruling BJP has challenged him to produce evidence before CID.
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