Crime Branch issues fresh summons to Kerala PSC chairman
Chairman M R Baiju has been directed to appear before the investigation team on November 10 regarding examination irregularities.
The Crime Branch has issued a fresh summons to Kerala Public Service Commission (PSC) chairman M R Baiju to appear for interrogation. According to ThePrint, the summons follows his absence from a second round of questioning scheduled for last Thursday.
Baiju reportedly skipped the previous interrogation by citing a pending petition filed by the Kerala PSC to quash the case. The state government formed a Crime Branch Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe alleged irregularities in recruitment examinations for State Planning Board posts.
The investigation found that errors in the On-Screen Marking (OSM) system meant 10 descriptive Economics questions, worth 58 marks, were not assigned to evaluators. This left several answer sheets unevaluated.
A revaluation triggered by a complaint from Shyam Krishna, who moved from third to first rank, resulted in Arun J Pradeep dropping from first to fifth place. The Crime Branch has since expanded its probe to other PSC recruitment examinations and registered three more cases.
The investigation team previously questioned four PSC members, the commission’s secretary, and the examination controller last month. So far, the Crime Branch has arrested PSC Deputy Secretary P Satheesh and Additional Secretary R Hari.