Thiruvananthapuram, Oct 30 The Crime Branch on Friday arrested Kerala PSC Additional Secretary R Hari in Kochi in connection with the alleged irregularities in the State Planning Board recruitment examination, sources said.
Hari, who was suspended by the PSC following the allegations, had been absconding for the past few days, police sources said.
He was arrested from a relative’s house in Kochi and is being brought to Thiruvananthapuram, officials said.
He is the second person to be arrested in the case, after former Deputy Secretary P Satheesh, who is currently in judicial custody.
Hari will be produced before a court on Saturday, officials said.
Satheesh and Hari were in supervisory roles during the State Planning Board recruitment examination, which is under investigation, officials said.
The state government had constituted a Crime Branch Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe alleged irregularities in the recruitment examination conducted by the PSC for posts in the State Planning Board.
The investigation found that 10 descriptive questions in Economics, carrying a total of 58 marks, had not been assigned to the appropriate evaluators due to errors in the On Screen Marking (OSM) system, leaving the answer sheets unevaluated.
Following a complaint by Shyam Krishna, who had initially secured the third rank, a revaluation was conducted, after which he moved to the first rank.
Arun J Pradeep, who had initially secured the first rank, moved to fifth place after the revaluation, officials said.
The Crime Branch has recently expanded its investigation to cover three other PSC recruitment examinations over suspected irregularities, officials said.
As part of the probe, the Crime Branch team recently questioned PSC members, including its chairman M R Baiju.
PSC Secretary Saju George will be questioned by the SIT on Saturday, while Examination Controller Bini K Abraham has been summoned for Monday, officials said.
(PTI News)
