This 'topper' does not know who is the President of India

Lucknow :  Dharmendra Patel, who topped the UP-assistant teachers' recruitment examination with 95 per cent marks, does not know who is the President of India.

Dharmendra Patel's utter lack of general knowledge came to light after the Prayagraj police, on Sunday, arrested him and nine others involved in allegedly accepting bribes running into lakhs from aspirants who sought jobs as assistant teachers during a recruitment drive for 69,000 posts in the UP Basic Education Department.

Dharmendra Patel, a resident of Prayagraj, emerging as a topper in the recruitment has now raised serious questions on the transparency of the entire process.

There were three other successful candidates who have been arrested and Patel was one of them.

"We quizzed them and they could not answer even basic questions related to general knowledge. This reflects on the irregularities in the recruitment system. If the teachers are so unaware, what can they be expected to teach the children?" said a police official, involved in the investigations.

According to the SSP Prayagraj, Satyartha Anirudh Pankaj, the main accused has been identified as K.L. Patel, a former Zila panchayat member and cash worth over Rs 22 lakh has been recovered from him.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the UP government to keep 37,339 posts of assistant teachers vacant, thereby staying the ongoing selection process of teachers in the state.

The entire recruitment process has already been stayed by the High Court and the state government has challenged the decision.

Meanwhile, the Yogi Adityanath government, on Tuesday, ordered an STF probe into the teachers' recruitment scam in the state.

UP Basic Education minister Satish Dwivedi told reporters, "The probe began after one of the applicants named Rahul filed a complaint with the police of bribes being taken for recruitment. The Prayagraj police immediately acted on the complaint and arrested K.L. Patel and nine others for accepting bribes. The government has ordered an STF probe into the matter."

The Congress has called it a 'Vyapam'-like scam while the BSP has sought a CBI probe into the matter.