India
oi-Ashish Rana
According to the reports, ED has taken cognisance of FIR registered by Jharkhand Police CID and other complaints to investigate alleged financial irregularities under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The investigation comes after protest against recruitment examinations getting intensify in Ranchi.
The ED investigates alleged financial irregularities in Jharkhand’s JPSC and JSSC recruitment exams under PMLA, following protests that led the state government to cancel the 14th JPSC and backlog exams, while a judicial inquiry is underway for the JSSC-CGL exam.
The investigation covers many examinations conducted under Jharkhand Public Service Commission (JPSC) and Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission (JSSC). Students have asked for transparency in irregularities in recruitment process.
What Are Students Demanding?
The protesters wants the cancellation of 14th JPSC examination and several JSSC exams, including the CGL and other recruitment tests conducted after 2019. They are also asking for CBI investigation, action against those who are involved, disclosure of category-wise cut-offs, OMR sheets and response sheets, besides a recruitment calendar on the lines of UPSC and SSC.
The protest continued on Monday, 10 August with students walk towards Jharkhand assembly. However, Police intervened and used tear gas, batons and water cannons to disperse protesters after it increased tensions.
Jharkhand Government Cancels Three Exams
After the state government held talks with protesters, they have agreed to cancel 14th JPSC examination along with the JPSC Backlog 2023 and Backlog 2025 examinations.
” The government agreed to cancel the 14th JPSC examination, as well as the ‘Backlog 23’ and ‘Backlog 25’ examinations that were scheduled alongside it,” Jharkhand Minister Sudivya Kumar Sonu said on Sunday.
However, the government has rejected the demand to cancel JSSC-CGL examination as stating court monitoring. The court has directed judicial inquiry which will be head by high court judge and a panel involving experts from IIT-ISM Dhanbad, IIM Ranchi and XLRI Jamshedpur.
JPSC Members Resign Amid Row
The controversy took a a turn when JPSC members Ajeeta Bhattacharya, Anima Hansda and Jamal Ahmad resigned on Sunday, and Governor Santosh Kumar Gangwar accepted their resignations. This all happened after CID summoned three members for allegations including examination irregularities and paper leaks.
However despite that the students have denied to end the protest saying, “We are not going to stop today. Our first demand is to cancel the JSSC-CGL exam, secondly a CBI probe.”
Now ED investigation will see whether the any money laundering or financial transactions happened into alleged recruitment irregularities fall within the scope of PMLA. The result of CID, judicial and ED investigations will decided the next steps in the controversial examinations.
