PM-led CSIR faces allegations of rigging in recruitment exam: report
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New Delhi: In the midst of NEET exam issues, allegations of ‘mismanagement and irregularities’ have surfaced in the selection process for the post of Section Officer (SO) and Assistant Section Officer (ASO) in the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), The Wire reported.
CSIR, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is facing questions as reports of massive rigging and irregularities emerge.
As allegations over the mismanagement and irregularities in the conduct of the Phase-2 examination, held on July 7 in the metro cities, surface, police in several states are probing the first stage of examinations.
The candidates, according to a probe by The Wire Hindi, carried to the exam hall devices like mobile phones and were recording videos.
Most importantly, it was reported that there was an atmosphere of noise and commotion at these centres and the places were so crowded that it was reportedly suggestive of mass cheating.
Supervisors and other employees of the examination centre were nowhere to be seen.
From the photos and videos surfaced on social media, the exam centres did not look like places where the recruitment examination for a major scientific institution of the Union government usually take place, according to The Wire.
When the situation went out of hand at some centres, police had to be called in; and the CSIR was forced to issue a notice following the second phase.
However, CSIR denied allegations of rigging in its recruitment process. Meanwhile, the notice issued on July 9 by the deputy secretary of the CSIR stated: “After the Computer Proficiency Test (CPT) was over, CSIR has received grievances from some candidates regarding technical glitches at some centres, uploading of files, taking printouts of uploaded files, etc. at a few centres. CSIR is looking into all these aspects of the CPT and after examining these grievances the decision will be communicated to the candidates through Web Notice in due course.”
More important of all, the exam was conducted by the Ahmedabad-based EduTest Solutions Private Limited, which the Uttar Pradesh government has blacklisted.
The CSIR has ignored this fact as it continued to take the company’s services and this is despite the first phase of the exam facing several probes.
According to the Wire Hindi probe, this Gujarat company has links with the BJP. ‘In our first instalment, we reported that EduTest founder Sureshchandra Arya is the president of a Hindu organisation and PM Modi is a regular attendee at his programs. The company’s managing director Vineet Arya has been jailed in a paper leak case, yet the company continues to bag contracts for exams from BJP governments,’ The Wire reported.
The second installment of the series reported allegations of large-scale rigging in the CSIR phase-1 exam conducted by EduTest. Subsequently, several FIRs were registered.
Curiously enough, the candidates who were jailed for cheating appeared in the list of candidates who had cleared the exam.
The Wire further reported that the second phase exam was held in 33 centres in ten cities including Delhi, Chandigarh, Kolkata, Lucknow, Pune, Bhopal, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai and Guwahati.