The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : CoD files charge sheet against IAS officer Monnappa

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CoD files charge sheet against IAS officer Monnappa

Krishnaprasad

Case relates to irregularities in evaluation of answer scripts of 1998 KAS exam

Monnappa disclosed code numbers of
candidates to chief examiner
Marks in history and general knowledge
were inflated

Bangalore: The Corps of Detectives (CoD) has filed a charge sheet against IAS officer A.K. Monnappa and 12 others in a criminal case related to irregularities in evaluation of answer scripts of the Karnataka Administrative Service (KAS) examination conducted in 1998.

The charge sheet, filed in April, names Mr. Monnappa, who was then Secretary of the Karnataka Public Service Commission (KPSC), as main accused. He is now Deputy Secretary, Department of Public Enterprises.

Seven charges

The officer has been charged under seven provisions of the Indian Penal Code — sections 120B (criminal conspiracy); 109 (abetment of crime); 119 (public servant concealing a design to commit an offence); 166 (public servant disobeying the law); 409 (criminal breach of trust by a public servant); 418 (cheating with the knowledge that wrongful loss may ensue to the person whose interests the offender is bound to protect); and 420 (cheating and dishonesty).

The charge sheet has been submitted to the jurisdictional Metropolitan Magistrate by the CoD investigating officer K. Srikanta, who is now Additional Superintendent of Police, Shimoga. A team headed by Inspector-General of Police M.R. Pujar conducted the investigation after the case was transferred to the CoD in 2004.

Among the other accused are K.S. Shivanna (accused number 2), who was professor in the Department of History, Mysore University, and Chief Examiner for the evaluation of history and general knowledge answer papers (Kannada). Shivanna died before the investigations could be concluded.

K. Rameshwarappa, his brother-in-law B.S. Nagaraj, and sisters-in-law B.S. Triveni and B.S. Hemalatha; P.C. Naveen, K.R. Pratap, K.C. Ponnappa, M. Leela, K.B. Subhash and N.T. Kaveriyappa, who appeared for the examination and benefited from the irregularities during the evaluation process, have been named as accused 3 to 12 respectively in the charge sheet. The CoD, in the charge sheet, concluded that Mr. Monnappa had disclosed the code numbers of these candidates to Shivanna, who in turn inflated the marks in history and general knowledge answer papers in the guise of randomly scrutinising the marks awarded by the evaluators.

Top ranks

Shivanna allegedly awarded the highest marks to the accused candidates, thus helping them to secure top ranks in the examination and ensure their selection for the post of assistant commissioner. The KPSC nullified their selection in 2003 and debarred them from appearing for any examination for government jobs. The charge sheet said that Shivanna had not tampered with the marks at the place where the answer papers were evaluated, as he was not the examiner of English answer scripts.

“Monnappa had made Shivanna in-charge chief examiner of the English-medium answer scripts too without the permission or knowledge of the KPSC when the regular chief examiner went on leave after May 23, 1999,” the charge sheet says.

“The 36 answer scripts of accused candidates were evaluated between May 15, 1999, and May 23, 1999, and Shivanna was not the in-charge chief examiner for randomly scrutinising the English-medium answer papers during this period,” the charge sheet pointed out, indicating that Shivanna had illegal access to the answer scripts because Mr. Monnappa had allegedly disclosed the codes to him. It has also been pointed out that Mr. Monnappa, Shivanna and Mr. Rameshwarappa knew one another since 1994 when Mr. Monnappa was Registrar of Mysore University.

Mr. Rameshwarappa had enrolled himself for Ph.D. under Shivanna at that time, the charge sheet said, while accusing them of hatching a criminal conspiracy to commit the offence.

Meanwhile, the CoD is awaiting permission from the Centre to prosecute Mr. Monnappa under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

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