Unqualified persons evaluated APPSC Group-I Mains answer sheets, allege police

Unqualified persons evaluated APPSC Group-I Mains answer sheets, allege police. Then APPSC Secretary Sitarama Anjaneyulu allegedly allowed the process to be carried out by private persons at a private place against rules.

The NTR Commissionerate police investigating the alleged job scam in the Andhra Pradesh Public Service Commission (APPSC) have said that unqualified persons evaluated the answer sheets of the Group-I Mains examinations.

Following the directions of the Andhra Pradesh High Court to set aside the digital evaluation process and take up manual evaluation, then APPSC Secretary and IPS officer P. Sitarama Anjaneyulu had allegedly entrusted the task to Camsign Media Private Limited, a private agency, in December 2021.

The firm’s director, P. Madhusudhana Rao, had engaged about 66 persons, many of whom were not qualified, for the purpose, the police allege.

“Those who evaluated the answer sheets included private school teachers, lecturers, data entry operators and clerks. They had also signed on the answer sheets as examiners and scrutinisers,” an investigation officer alleged.

The evaluation process had been carried out at the Haailand Resorts in Guntur district for three months, violating the APPSC rules, alleged Assistant Commissioner of Police A.B.G. Tilak, who is investigating the case.

Mr. Anjaneyulu had allegedly went ahead with the process despite several officers making it clear to him that evaluation of the answer sheets at a private place by private persons was against rules, and that it should be entrusted to professors and assistant professors working in the government-run colleges / universities.

No surveillance cameras had been arranged at the evaluation camp, and the government paid ₹1.14 crore to the private agency for conducting the manual evaluation, the ACP said.