M A I N   N E W S

CBI busts railway recruitment scam
Board chief suspended, his son among 8 held
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, June 18
In a major embarrassment to the Railways, the Chairman of the Railway Recruitment Board, Mumbai, SM Sharma, was today placed under suspension after his son was arrested by the CBI for allegedly leaking out questions for a recruitment exam.

According to the CBI, eight persons were arrested in all during simultaneous raids at Mumbai, Bangalore, Raipur, Kolkata and Hyderabad for the recruitment scam relating to examinations for the posts of assistant loco pilot and assistant station master held this month.

Those arrested include Vivek Bhardwaj Sharma, SM Sharma’s son, former additional divisional railway manager AK Jagannatham, his son Srujan, Raipur-based agent MRSN Murthy, A Kumar Swamy, an employee of Andhra Pradesh health department and three other Hyderabad-based agents.

Jagannatham in connivance with the officials of RRB, Mumbai, secured a copy of the question paper before the examination date and provided it to several aspirants reached by him with the help of his agents. The aspirants were asked to pay huge amounts of money and deposit their original certificates with Jagannatham. He would give them then the question paper a day prior to the examination. “The agreement was to pay the remaining money and to take away the certificates after the declaration of the results. Each candidate would pay to the tune of Rs 3.5 lakh,” the CBI said. At Mumbai, searches at the accused’s houses and official premises led to the seizure of Rs 60 lakh in bank accounts of the family members of the RRB Chairman. And at Hyderabad, Rs 21.5 lakh in cash and the original certificates of 444 aspirants were recovered by the CBI from the residence of the then ADRM. Besides, Rs 12 lakh along with incriminating documents such as question papers and original certificates of aspirants were seized from his possession at a Bangalore hotel where he was staying.