Berhampur: A Special Vigilance Court in Odisha’s Berhampur city has granted conditional bail to 114 aspirants of the now-postponed Combined Police Service Examination (CPSE) 2024, who were arrested from three buses near the Odisha-Andhra Pradesh border on September 30 for their alleged involvement in the massive scam in recruitment of sub-inspectors.
They are among the 123 people arrested so far in connection with the case.
The court on Tuesday allowed bail to the 114 job seekers, who had colluded with the scammers to pass the test, on a bond of Rs 50,000 along with two sureties for each accused. They have been directed to assist the ongoing probe, and not attempt to influence any witnesses. They have also been barred from leaving the country without prior permission, sources said.
More than 40 lawyers represented the accused candidates.
The court, however, rejected the bail applications of nine key accused, including the alleged mastermind Munna Mohanty, who perpetrated the scam by luring the aspirants.
This came a day after the Orissa High Court disposed of a PIL seeking direction for a CBI probe into the scam since the state government had already recommended for the investigation to be conducted by the central agency. The scam, which surfaced when a case was registered at the Golanthara police station in Berhampur based on a tip-off on September 30, was handed over to the CID-Crime Branch, where it was re-registered under provisions of the Odisha Public Examination (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2004, and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).
On October 23, Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi approved a proposal to hand over the investigation to the central agency due to alleged involvement of an inter-state organised criminal syndicate in the scam, which had spread of the scam to multiple states such as Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal.
The Odisha Police Recruitment Board (OPRB), according to reports, had outsourced the conduct of the exam to ITI Limited, a central public-sector undertaking (PSU) headquartered in Kolkata. However, ITI Limited further sub-contracted the job to Bhubaneswar-based Silicon Techlab, which in turn assigned key responsibilities to Panchsoft Technologies headed by Sankar Prusty, the key conspirator.
Sankar had planned to take the candidates to Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh to provide them ‘training’, just a few days before the exam. Each candidate had agreed to pay Rs 25 lakh — with Rs 10 lakh to be paid upfront and the remaining Rs 15 lakh after securing the job, according to reports.
A total of 1.53 lakh candidates applied for 933 police sub-inspector posts, the written test for which was initially scheduled to be held on March 8-9 and then again rescheduled to October 5 and 6. It has now been postponed indefinitely.