KPSC veterinary officer recruitment row: Karnataka HC seeks State’s response on plea for CBI probe
The Karnataka High Court has sought the State government’s response to a plea seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the Karnataka Public
The Karnataka High Court has sought the State government’s response to a plea seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the Karnataka Public Service Commission’s (KPSC) recruitment of veterinary officers, with the petitioner alleging that the Criminal Investigation Department’s (CID) past investigations into KPSC recruitment scams had failed to produce outcomes that inspire public confidence. Justice M. Nagaprasanna passed the order on a petition filed by Manjunath, an aspirant to the post, on whose complaint an FIR was registered by the Vidhana Soudha police alleging a large-scale fraud in the recruitment process. As the government subsequently transferred the FIR to the CID, along with another FIR registered on the complaint of the Department of Animal Husbandry, the petitioner has moved the High Court expressing no confidence in the probe being conducted by any investigating agency of the State.
According to the petitioner, experience has shown that investigations undertaken by the CID in matters of comparable magnitude have seldom culminated in bringing the real perpetrators to justice or in unearthing the complete truth behind organised corruption. ‘Orchestrated fraud’ The court observed that “if the allegations made in the complaint ultimately withstand judicial scrutiny, they would disclose not sporadic irregularities but a systematic assault upon the constitutional mandate governing public employment”, referring to the petitioner’s claim that “the list of candidates selected to the post did not culminate in the triumph of merit, but marked the culmination of a carefully orchestrated fraud upon the recruitment process.” It has been alleged in the complaint and the petition that the candidates with outstanding academic records throughout their educational career were excluded from the select list, while others with comparatively modest academic performance reportedly secured exceptionally high marks in the competitive exam conducted by the KPSC,.
The complaint further alleges that mobile phones of certain candidates “remained switched off immediately prior to and during the examination,” and those candidates were “allegedly accommodated in hotels and other secluded places where confidential access to examination-related material was facilitated,” enabling them to appear “armed with an unfair advantage unavailable to genuine
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