Nainital: The Uttarakhand High Court on Monday while hearing the petition of Congress MLA Bhuvan Chandra Kapri regarding the UKSSSC paper leak case, asked the petitioner to explain why he wants a CBI probe and doubts the investigation of Uttarakhand Special Task Force (STF).
After hearing the matter, the single bench of Justice Sanjay Kumar Mishra sought Kapri's reply by September 12. The next hearing will be on September 12. Congress MLA Bhuvan Chandra Kapri filed a petition in the High Court saying that the STF is not properly investigating the irregularities in the Uttarakhand Subordinate Services Selection Commission (UKSSSC) examination.
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He claimed in his petition that the arrests made so far were of small people but not a single arrest was made of senior officials. Kapri said that many big officers and leaders of UP and Uttarakhand are involved in the scam. "The government is saving them. Therefore, the STF should be removed from the investigation and the case should be handed over to the CBI," he said.
Uttarakhand Police on Sunday informed that a total of 34 people have been arrested by STF in the UKSSSC examination paper leak case till now. The STF further said that cash amounting to Rs 92 lakh has been recovered in the case.
"A total of Rs 92 lakh in cash has been recovered so far in the paper leak, as well as illegal assets worth crores of the accused arrested in the past, dozens of bank accounts have also been frozen", said Ajay Singh, Senior Superintendent of Police, STF Uttrakhand.
The STF arrested an accomplice of copying mafia Sampan Rao, from Uttar Pradesh. "The accused Sampan Rao has been arrested by STF from Gomtinagar Lucknow on the basis of strong technical evidence," said STF.
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"STF Uttarakhand has succeeded in arresting an important accomplice of copying mafia of Uttar Pradesh. On the basis of strong evidence and technical evidence, accused Sampanna Rao has been arrested by STF from Gomtinagar Lucknow, the accused is originally a resident of Ghazipur Uttar Pradesh, and is an associate of copying gangster Sadiq Musa", said SSP Ajay Singh.
The SSP further said that the accused Sampan Rao used to come and stay in Haldwani before the examination along with other accused and leak the paper before the examination. Along with this, the STF also recovered Rs 3.80 lakh from the accused in the examination leak case. The STF a few days back arrested a police constable, Vinod Joshi, in the paper leak case.
"During the investigation of the UKSSSC paper leak case, on the basis of statements and evidence of the accused and witness arrested earlier, the accused Vinod Joshi resident of Sitarganj Udham Singh Nagar was arrested on the basis of evidence", said SSP Ajay Singh.
Joshi is currently in judicial custody.
The SSP informed that the accused Vinod Joshi, along with his brother was provided a house in Kudeshwari a night before the examination, along with the candidates in VDO/VPDO recruitment where the paper was solved. The accused has also been arrested on the basis of the evidence of taking several examinees from one place to another in his car.
The case pertains to a written exam conducted by the UKSSSC in December 2021. This was one of the major examinations conducted by the commission for 854 posts across 13 departments.
However, there were widespread allegations that there were irregularities in the conduct of the test. Following these allegations, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami called for a probe and strict action against those guilty. Following this, the secretary of the commission was removed from the post. A Special Task Force (STF) was also constituted to investigate the alleged irregularities.
Initially, the Dehradun police registered a case against the unidentified accused. After that, the Police Headquarters (PHQ) handed over the investigation to the STF. (ANI)
