3 BSE staff jailed in marks scandal case
Bhubaneswar,
Nov
12:
Three
suspended
Board
of
Secondary
Education
(BSE)
officials
were
arrested
and
sent
to
jail
yesterday
in
connection
with
the
marks
scandal
of
the
son
of
former
School
and
Mass
Education
Minister
Bishnu
Das.
Crime Branch officials raided the residence of former BSE Secretary Dr Minaketan Pani and former BSE Controller of Examination Manmohan Swain besides a section officer and arrested them.
They were later produced before a local magistrate at Cuttack in the evening and sent to jail custody after rejection of their bail applications.
According to Inspector General of Crime Branch Bijaya Sharma, the three suspended officials had been accused of manipulation, tampering of document, cheating and criminal conspiracy in the marks scandal of Bijaya Shankar Das, son of the former School and Mass Education Minister.
Embroiled in the marks scandal controversy of his son, Mr Das had resigned from the Council of Ministers in August last. The former Minister, however, was not named in the probe report, submitted by the state Chief Secretary Ajit Kumar Tripathy.
Crime Branch sources said since the former Minister's son was a beneficiary in the scandal, he was likely to come under the probe and some more BSE officials involved in the tampering of marksheet of Bijaya Shankar might be arrested in the course of investigation.
The former Minister's son had secured 602 in the High School Certificate Examination, conducted by the BSE but on verification the total marks reduced to 478 leading to suspicion of the involvement of the BSE officials in the scandal.
The issue had snowballed into a major crisis in the political circle with all the Opposition political parties demanding a judicial inquiry and dismissal of the then School and Mass Education Minister.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik finally ordered a crime branch inquiry into the incident and the BSE suspended the three officials after prime facie evidence revealed their role in the marks scandal.
UNI