Shimla, April 8
Mr S.M. Katwal, chairman of the state subordinate selection board, has been booked by the Enforcement Department under the Prevention of Corruption Act in connection with alleged irregularities in the selection of vidya upasaks.

He has been charged with abusing his official position to give undue benefit to certain candidates. He has also been charged with cheating, forging and tampering with records in connivance with certain wrongfully selected candidates. An FIR has been registered under various sections of the IPC and Section 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

A case has been registered after one month after a special team headed by Mr Jagjit Gupta, DIG, raided the premises of the board at Hamirpur and the residential houses of Mr Katwal at Una and Hamirpur.

The selection record and other incriminating material seized during the raids was scrutinised by senior officers here. While the board, which has been following the practice of destroying records after just three months, had done away with most of the record, the police was still able to lay hands on records pertaining to the selection of vidya upasaks and those in which court cases had been filed.

Overwriting of marks given to some candidates were detected while in certain cases marks had been originally written with pencil and later on with pen. So far only the record pertaining to Karsog subdivision has been examined.