In a major crackdown on officials involved in the Uttarakhand Subordinate Service Selection Commission (UKSSC) recruitment scam, the SIT on Saturday arrested a retired Indian Forest Service officer R.B.S. Rawat, joint secretary Manohar Kanyal and another senior officer from the State rural services, R.S. Pokhariyal.
According to the sources in the Special Task force (STF) formed by the State government to investigate into the irregularities in the recruitments of village panchayat development officers via UKSSC exam back in 2016, the arrested retired officer, R.B.S. Rawat was also the former Chief Of Forest Force In the State (HOFF), the senior-most post in the State Forest department. He was the then chairman of UKSSC exams when the scam was reported.
“RBS Rawat was made advisor with the State government under former BJP government in the State. The other two are also senior officers who were directly involved in the scam,” said an STF officer on conditions of anonymity.
The STF found that the Optical Mark Recognition sheet related to the said examination was tampered with and the same was confirmed by the FSL.
“During the investigation it was also found that the work of OMR scanning / final result preparation related to the said examination was done at the house of the then Secretary Manohar Singh Kanyal,” the STF said.
Biggest action taken
Hailing what is being dubbed as the ‘biggest action taken so far by the STF against former UKSSSC scam’, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said that the arrests would set a precedent in the State that the BJP government would not tolerate scams and irregularities.
“We are working with zero tolerance against scams. The government and the investigating agencies are working to ensure that those harming the interests of the youth and genuine candidates will not be spared. We will conduct the exams with full transparency in future,” said the CM.
To recall, the examinations for the recruitment of village panchayat development officers were held across the State via examinations conducted by the UKSSSC in March 2016. Its results were announced on March 30, 2016. Following the complaints of ‘cheating’ and ‘irregularities’ in the exam, the State government had formed a panel headed by the former additional chief secretary to probe into the alleged irregularities committed in the examinations in 2017.
The State, in 2019, handed over the probe to the vigilance establishment after the committee attested the irregularities in the exams. The Pushkar Singh Dhami government in August this year handed over the case to the STF to speed up investigations. Three people were arrested by the STF in the last two months.
