Bengaluru: Karnataka Home Minister G. Parameshwara on Saturday said that the PSI recruitment scandal investigation has been handed over to the judicial committee, which will bring out the truth.
“The committee, headed by High court retired judge Justice B. Veerappa, will conduct an inquiry,” he said.
Talking to reporters, Parameshwara said: “We had demanded for a judicial probe into the scandal earlier. The decision has been taken to bring out the truth. The investigation and recruitment will be done separately. If these issues will be mixed up, it won’t possible to make recruitments.”
However, he also stated that it is not possible to make recruitments for the posts of 400 vacant posts until this issue is resolved. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah-led government had ordered a judicial probe into the PSI Recruitment Scandal on Thursday and copy of the order was released on Friday night.
The Congress government in Karnataka had announced that it would re-investigate the Police Sub-Inspector (PSI) recruitment scam in the state.
The police have arrested more than 30 accused persons, including an ADGP ranked officer, for the first time in the history of the state.
The Congress leaders vehemently demanded resignation of former Home Minister Araga Jnanendra. They also alleged corruption by former minister C.N. Ashwath Narayan and indirectly referred to former CM B.S. Yediyurappa’s son BJP MLA B. Y. Vijayendra’s role as well.
ADGP Amrit Paul, who was arrested long back, is still in the prison.
The Congress leaders said: “The investigation is stuck at this stage and the authorities have not bothered to carry forward the probe as there is involvement of powerful BJP politicians.”
The CID had already submitted two charge sheets to the court regarding the scandal and is still investigating the case.
As many as 54,041 candidates appeared for exams held on October 3, 2021 for the 545 vacant posts PSI posts. The exams were held in 92 centers across the state and results were announced in January.
Later, the allegations surfaced that candidates, whose performance was poor in descriptive writing, got maximum marks in Paper 2. However, the police department and then Home Minister under the previous BJP government denied any irregularities in PSI recruitment 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 ranked seventh.
Minister for RDPR, IT and BT, Priyank Kharge had then alleged that more than 300 of the 545 candidates had paid Rs 70 to 80 lakh bribe to officials and ministers to become PSIs. The then BJP government had challenged him to produce evidence before CID.
