Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government on Wednesday terminated the Tier-I empanelment of Silicon Tech Lab Pvt Ltd, a Bhubaneswar-based IT firm, amid its alleged complicity in the Odisha Police Sub-Inspector (SI) recruitment scam.
“Odisha Electronics & IT Department terminates the Tier-I empanelment of Silicon Tech Lab Pvt Ltd for violation of multiple material clauses of its service agreement with OCAC,” the official notification read.
Other terms of the 2023 notification remain unchanged, it added.
Last month, the Crime Branch of Odisha Police had arrested the promoter of Silicon Techlab Private Limited, Suresh Nayak.
The SI examination was scheduled to be held in the first week of October for the recruitment of 933 police sub-inspectors
by the Odisha Police Recruitment Board. It was subsequently cancelled. Police said the Odisha Police Recruitment Board, which is mandated to conduct the exam, had outsourced the work to ITI Limited, a central PSU in Kolkata. ITI Limited had sublet the work to Silicon and key tasks were given to Panchsoft Technologies headed by the alleged mastermind of recruitment examination scam Sankar Prusty.
The investigation established that Suresh was solely responsible for preparation, printing and transportation of the question papers. He had hired agents to identify and collect original certificates and blank cheques from aspirants in exchange for the leaked question papers.
The fraud came to light after Berhampur police intercepted three air-conditioned buses carrying 114 exam aspirants and three middlemen, near the Andhra Pradesh border in Golanthara on September 30. Each candidate had agreed to pay Rs 25 lakh in instalments, Rs 10 lakh as advance and the remaining Rs 15 lakh after they were selected for the job.
On November 12, the CBI took over the probe from the state crime branch amid the possibility of a larger conspiracy with interstate implications.