Scams take their toll, 2 top state offi cers arrested

Hameed Ashraf | NT
Bengaluru:

In stunning developments which sent ripples through the state bureaucracy, sleuths of the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on Monday arrested J Manjunath, former Deputy Commissioner, Bengaluru (Urban), after he came under a cloud over corruption allegations while Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) Amrit Paul, an IPS officer, who was earlier heading the police recruitment division, was arrested for his alleged involvement in the PSI recruitment scam.

As per sources, ACB personnel arrested IAS officer Manjunath from his residence in Bengaluru’s Yeshwanthpur. The ACB had interrogated Manjunath on Thursday after the Karnataka High Court took the investigative agency to task terming it a ‘collection centre’.

A day after his interrogation, the state government had shunted him as director of the Integrated Child Protection Scheme. Two staff members in Manjunath’s office were arrested in May for allegedly receiving a bribe of Rs 5 lakh from a Anekal resident to get a favourable order from the DC court in relation to 38 ‘guntas’ of land, which is close to one acre. In the case of Amrit Paul, he was heading the recruitment division when the scam took place.

After largescale irregularities came to light, he was transferred as the ADGP for the Internal Security Division. According to top sources, the Optical Marks Recognition (OMR) sheets of the fraudulent candidates were allegedly tampered in the recruitment division itself. They also claimed that Paul was in the know of the development.

The ADGP was arrested after he was quizzed by the police at least four times, sources said. “After his arrest, he was taken to Bowring Hospital for medical examination,” a police official said adding that he was produced in a court, which remanded him to 10 days’ police custody.

Commenting on the arrest of a senior IPS officer, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai said the government has given a free hand to the CID and hence, they have taken action based on the evidence. “I had already said that however mighty they are, we will take action.

Because of our government, a senior officer was arrested,” Bommai told reporters. To a query whether this was not a disgrace for the government, he sought to know how this question arose when the government itself had ordered an inquiry. The recruitment scam had first come to light in Kalaburagi district, when the OMR sheet of a candidate was posted on social media showing that despite answering only 21 out of 100 questions, he cleared the exam.

This triggered a public outrage against the manner in which the exam was conducted. The police probed the matter and registered a case against the candidate and the person who had posted it. The probe further led to the arrest of a BJP leader and owner of Gnana Jyothi English Medium School in Kalaburagi, Divya Hagaragi.