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Saturday, Aug 18, 2007
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Marks scandal: Chief Secretary continues probe

Correspondent

Two employees give statement that they were forced to issue fresh sheet

CUTTACK: Even as the School and Mass Education Minister Bishnu Charan Das put in his papers on Friday owning moral responsibility for the tampering of marks involving his son, State Chief Secretary Ajit Tripathy continued his investigations into the episode and is yet to submit his report.

Mr. Tripathy visited the Board of Secondary Education (BSE) office here for the second time on Friday. During his investigation, he perused some more files and questioned some more staff about the incident. BSE senior assistant Bharati Patra and section officer Nityananda Sutar gave written statements to the Chief Secretary stating that they were forced to issue a fresh mark sheet in fovour of the Minister’s son on back date.

Both employees maintained that BSE Secretary Minaketan Pani and Controller of the Examination Manornjan Swain asked them to come to the office on the night of August 6 and told them to prepare the mark sheet of dated June 11. "When I told them that the mark sheet cannot be issued without the requisite fees, the officials allowed it to be issued free of cost", Mr. Patra said adding that there was no provision to issue mark sheet without the mandatory fee of Rs 31.

Following these allegations, the Chief Secretary grilled the two accused officials for several hours in the BSE office on the day.

Staff charge

Meanwhile, the agitating employees of BSE who stopped work since Monday demanding a CBI probe into the matter allege that a systematic racket was involved in tampering the marks of the Minister’s son. The Minister’s son Bijay Sankar who passed this year’s matriculation examination was initially shown to have secured 602 marks out of a possible 750. But actually, he had secured 478 marks.

Marks in at least five subjects were tampered in Bijay’s case, said BSE employees’ association president Gopal Behera. Mr. Behera also pointed out that the Chief Secretary’s probe would remain inconclusive if the computer farm in Kolkota which was assigned to tabulate the marks of the candidates was not brought under the purview of the enquiry. He also questioned why the former BSE president D C Mishra, IAS, who was unceremoniously removed from his post last week was not asked to depose before the Chief Secretary. Mr. Mishra had paid the price for first wanting to see the answer scripts of the Minister’s son, Mr. Behera said.

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