Hyderabad: The Singareni Collieries Company Limited and JNTU-Hyderabad were non-committal on ordering a CBI or a CID inquiry into the allegations of a scam in the Singareni Collieries job recruitment test.
“The SCCL vigilance wing has conducted an enquiry into the allegations and JNTU-Hyderabad has requested the Cyberabad police to conduct a thorough inquiry. SCCL officials and JNTU professors have examined the allegations against each family name and each candidate and cross checked their answer sheets, i.e. OMR sheet. The answering pattern is different and we have found all the allegations to be baseless,” said SCCL director (finance) J. Pavitran Kumar and JNTU-H professor Dr N.V. Ramana Rao who oversaw the SCCL junior assistants exam (SCRTJA-2015). They said they were ready to inquire into any allegation if the complainants could provide evidence.
When reporters asked what was wrong in seeking a CID or CBI inquiry since SCCL and JNTU-H were facing allegations, they said they had approached all complainants and no one was able to provide any proof.
Reacting to a report published in DC on November 11, they said jobs were neither sold nor was there any question paper leak, as the recruitment test was conducted in a transparent manner and one of the three question paper sets was selected two hours before the exam through draw of lots.
On the allegation that an invigilator had written the exam they said there was no possibility of it as the complainants had not named any invigilator or exam centre. “The exam was conducted by JNTU which has earlier conducted Eamcet 17 times and the VRO and Electricity Board exams and the Jharkhand State CET without any problems. The exam was overseen by GM-cadre officials of SCCL,” they said.
To the allegation that two members each from 70 families seemed to have got posts as the family names were the same, the SCCL and JNTU-H authorities clarified that the list displayed is merit list and not selection list.
“Out of about 70,000 candidates, about 65,000 qualified and their marks has been displayed. There are only 471 posts while the total candidates mentioned in the allegation comes to about 1,144. The SCCL vigilance conducted the inquiry and found the charges baseless,” they said. Officials said that of the nearly 70,000 candidates who took the exam, 298 had the surname ‘Pothu’, 231 ‘Thota’ and 168 candidates had the surname ‘Uppu’. An inquiry into the native places, father’s names, caste details and ranks revealed that they belonged to different places, their castes and their exam centres were different.
It was also observed that qualified candidates with the same surname belonged to different castes and their native places and exam centres were also different.
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