Patna HC dismisses bail pleas of senior IAS officer, 13 others

Patna, Dec 6: The Patna High Court dismissed the bail applications of 14 persons, including senior IAS officer and former Bihar Staff Selection Commission (SSC) chairman Sudhir Kumar, who are in jail in connection with a paper leak scam that had surfaced in February.

A bench of Justice Prabhat Kumar Jha dismissed the bail pleas of the 14 accused, including Kumar, his sister-in-law Manju Kumari, a government school teacher -- Atal Kumar Rai, a former data operator -- Avinash Kumar -- and the then IT manager with the Bihar SSC, Niti Ranjan Pratap.

The Bihar government had, on February 8, cancelled the BSSC examination, which was held on February 5 to fill up the clerical posts in the state administration, in the wake of reports of the paper leak before the examination. The leaked question paper of the BSSC examination had reportedly become available online, before the commencement of the test.

On the basis of a preliminary report of Director General of Police (DGP) P K Thakur and recommendation of Chief Secretary Anjani Kumar Singh, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had ordered the cancellation of the exam. Sudhir Kumar was arrested from Jharkhand on February 24 by a Special Investigation Team, formed to look into the scam and suspended by the state government a few days later.

PTI