Chennai: After police initiated an inquiry into the recruitment scam, over 90 candidates who had qualified with inflated marks in the written exam for government polytechnic lecturers’ posts, have now sent representations to the Teachers Recruitment Board (TRB) claiming that they were not aware of the announcement of written exam results and the huge differences in their marks.
The TRB unearthed a major scam in the polytechnic lecturers’ recruitment in which it found out that around 200 candidates qualified with fake marks. These candidates’ marks were inflated from 50 to 100 to qualify them for the next round. Following the scam, the board withdrew the results released on November 7 and released new results with original OMR answer scripts on December 11. In the new results, the marks of these 200 candidates were reduced.
“The board has given one week from December 11 to 18 seeking objections from all candidates. We have received around 100 representations but none of these 200 candidates approached the board over the differences in their marks,” sources said. Following a complaint from the TRB, the Central Crime Branch (CCB) has filed a case against 156 candidates.
“Fearing criminal action initiated by the board, these candidates have now sent petitions to the TRB with various claims ranging from ignorance of the results to computer illiteracy. The petitions were received after the last date. The candidates who were silent so far about the scam have to face police inquiry,” sources added.
In connection with the scam, the cyber crime wing of the central crime branch arrested Ganesh (28), a call taxi driver and are on the lookout for software engineer Naser who allegedly manipulated the marks. It is expected that TRB officials and employees will also be questioned in the coming weeks.
The written exam for 1,058 polytechnic lecturer posts was held on September 16 and 1.33 lakh candidates appeared for the exam. Of 2,000 candidates who were selected for certificate verification 200 qualified with fake marks.
Each candidate had allegedly paid '25 to '30 lakh to touts. The scam came to light when the TRB verified the marks of the candidates selected for certificate verification with the original answer scripts, following complaints.
