The Times of India:Friday, December 23, 2011.
CHANDRAPUR: The rejected candidates of forest recruitment drive of 2007-08 alleged of several irregularities and corruption in the recruitment process. They accused that the then conservator of forest, North Chandrapur circle, Ramji Singh Yadav and CF, South Chandrapur circle, Mahip Gupta allegedly appointed several ineligible candidates. taking bribe from them.
They demanded CBI inquiry into the matter and threatened to knock the doors of the court, if denied justice.
Rajvilas Atram, Sunil Trisule, Pramkumar Bawane and Sumit Damgadge came up with evidences pointing corruption and irregularities in the recruitment. It took four years for them to collect necessary documents and evidences through the Right To Information (RTI) Act. In a press conference held at the press club, they alleged that the forest officers amassed around Rs 5 crore through corruption in the recruitment.
Atram said that the recruitment for 530 posts in erstwhile North and South Chandrapur circle (Now Chandrapur and Gadchiroli circle respectively) was carried out in 2007-08. All four of them had appeared for the recruitment and got rejected at different stages, while some other candidates were selected through corrupt means.
"A candidate - Sudhakar Atkapurwar - was selected as cleaner (swachak) even as he was overage and the marksheet submitted by him had manual manipulations. While another candidate Rambhola Prasadsingh, who also got selected as a cleaner, the marksheet submitted by him had some other name than the one that he put on the selection list. Similarly, Ravi Kannake was selected despite the fact that the duplicate marksheet submitted by him was issued several days after the last date of submission of documents for recruitment," he alleged.
Atram pointed out irregularities in 15 different cases in which the selected candidates were appointed, despite being ineligible. "There are cases of manual manipulation in marksheets, appointment of overage candidates, preference over the candidates higher in waiting list and manipulation in the marks given by the selection committee members. Criteria and eligibility was overlooked for preferred candidates and they got selected," he alleged.
In one instance a handicap candidate Jyoti Gunitwar was appointed as forest guard despite the fact that there was no reservation for handicap candidates in the recruitment, he alleged. In one other case one Bharti Raut is shown to have earned 64.2 marks in selection list, but the sum of total marks earned is actually is 61.51, he charged.
"The eligible candidates were disqualified to select the ineligible candidates who bribed the officers. We have earlier submitted a memorandum to anti-corruption office and leader of opposition in the state, but none took the heed," they alleged.
Mahip Gupta denied the charges of corruption. He held that they had received over 60,000 applications for different posts and various committees were instituted for scrutiny of the documents and executing different responsibilities. "It was compulsory for the candidates to attest the documents from gazetted officer. I don't think that there were any errors in scrutiny of documents. If some mistakes may have occurred, then present officers in Chandrapur can inquire into the matter and rectify it," he said.
He claimed that the recruitment procedure was fair and open. Department had received more than 600 applications under RTI after recruitment drive seeking different queries. All the applications were answered in time, then what is the reason behind raising the issue after so many years, he asked.
Ramjisingh Yadav could not be reached on phone for his reply on allegation.