In a major decision, the Uttar Pradesh government on September 11

had suspended 12 senior Indian Police Services (IPS) officers in the state for their alleged involvement in the police recruitment scam during Mr Yadav's regime and annulled 14 recruitment boards in which a total of 6504 civil police and PAC constables were recruited.

With this, the government also cancelled the recruitments of 6,504 policemen selected by these boards.

Of the suspended officers, two were of the IG rank, eight DIG rank and rest two of the SP rank. Besides the IPS officers, the government had also suspended 14 additional SPs and 40 Dy SPs for their involement in the scam. Of the 12, two officers Mukul Goel and Daljit Singh Choudhury are presently on central deputation.

A high-powered committee, investigating the matter, submitted report to the government. At least 13 top police officials had been charged with irregularities in the recruitment of around 20,000 policemen during 2005-06 by the investigating committee.

These charges included allegedly waiving police verification to recruit several people with criminal records, forging exam papers and caste certificates, fudging scores and even changing laid-down criteria to favour selected candidates.

The high-powered probe committee, headed by Additional Director General of police (ADG), STF Shailja Kant Mishra, had found that these officials were directly involved in the police recruitment at Bareilly, Allahabad, Gorakhpur, Etawah, Kanpur rural, Kannauj and Jhansi.

The committee had submitted reports on 16 recruitment centres and the government had processed reports of at least 10 centres before initiating any action.

The probe was ordered by chief minister Mayawati on June 13 on the complaints filed by some legislators and unsuccessful candidates of eastern UP.

Between May 2005 and November 2006, more than 20,000 police constables, PAC jawans and wireless operators were recruited at 55 centres all over the state.

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