APSC 'cash-for-jobs' scam: Inquiry report exposes shocking corruption in 2013-2014 exams

The Justice (retd) BK Sharma inquiry committee has said the Assam Public Service Commission (APSC) was "reduced to a private guild" where jobs were sold during the 2013 and 2014 civil service exams. 

The anomalies and malpractices involved in the 2013 and 2014 APSC exams, which were probed separately by the same one-man panel, "shocked its conscience" and "was beyond the imagination of the commission while taking charge". 

The APSC was involved in the 'cash-for-job' scam, which was uncovered in 2016. Nearly 70 people, including then-chairman Rakesh Paul and over 50 civil and police officials, have been arrested. 

The two reports of the Justice (retd) Sharma Commission into the irregularities in the Combined Competitive Examinations (CCE) for 2013 and 2014 were tabled in the Assembly by Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Monday. 

While the report into the 2013 exam was submitted to the government by the panel on March 21, 2022, the second one into the 2014 exam was submitted on October 12, 2023. 

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The panel report into the CCE 2013 said in its conclusion: "With the kind of revelation made in the inquiry conducted by the commission, it must be said that the APSC was reduced to a private guild and/ or employment agency for providing job in lieu of money and other extraneous consideration." "Its sanctity as a constitutional body was tampered with impunity. The kind of selection that was conducted and resorted to, made a mockery of the same. Jobs were made available for sale," it added. 

The commission raised question over selection of Rakesh Paul, first as a member of APSC and then elevation as its chairman. "The very inception and for that matter induction of the chairman by the particular process…was ill founded paving the way for all-round corruption," the report said. "The kind of anomalies and malpractices, the commission has come across on scrutiny of evidence…has shocked its conscience," it added. 

The commission also noted that the beneficiaries were "extended with helping hands by their so called well-wishers, guardians and parents". The panel maintained that "the nature of the malpractices and fraud perpetrated in CCE 2013 as recorded in this report based on evidence demolish the very credibility of the process of selection itself and to what extent it had eroded". 

While leaving it upon the government to decide on remedial measures on basis of findings of the commission, it emphasised need for "drastic measures" for restoration of public faith on APSC. 

In its conclusion for the 2014 CCE report, the commission said the anomalies and malpractices were similar in both exams. It said the same illegalities were repeated "with wholesome compromise of the basic tenets of selection on merit reducing the APSC to a private guild and an entity of job for extraneous consideration, be it monetary or others". 

The panel noted that Paul, during his incumbency from 2008 till his arrest in 2016, was associated with more than 200 selections, including CCEs, leading to apprehension of illegalities in other examinations also. It also said Paul "could not make the illegal selections possible unless there were extending and supporting hands for him". 

It noted that call details of Paul and other arrested members and staff of APSC had revealed details of contact with few illegally selected candidates and their guardians, as well as some "reportedly of high dignitaries including that of police personnel". While refraining from making allegation of involvement of such persons in the scam, the commission said the timing of the calls "gives rise to suspicion making it a matter to ponder about". 

The commission expressed concern that while services of many illegal appointees have been dispensed with, but "many more are still in the administration occupying high and key positions". "With their illegal presence in service, not only the administration and for that matter, the public will suffer, but it will carry a very wrong message towards compromising merit and performance of deserving candidates," it added.