Tamil Nadu: TRB to probe other teacher recruitments

DECCAN CHRONICLE. | A RAGU RAMAN
PublishedDec 19, 2017, 3:27 am IST

Possible involvement of TRB staff suspected.

CHENNAI: Following the expose of large-scale scam in the recruitment of lecturers for Government Polytechnic Colleges, the Teachers’ Recruitment Board (TRB) is likely to conduct probe into other teacher recruitments made in recent times.

“The Teachers’ Recruitment Board will conduct a detailed inquiry with the candidates who found to be involved in recruitment racket of polytechnic lecturers. If we come across any information on other scams in the previous recruitments, the government will probe those recruitments as well,” a source said.

There is a suspicion that one or two staff from the TRB might have involved in the scam. “As of now, we do not have any evidence against the TRB staff or officials. The inquiry might throw light on those who involved in the racket,” the source added.

After the internal inquiry, the government may hand over the case to the police for further investigation. As all the answer sheets were made available in the public domain, the state government is unlikely to cancel the written test.

In an exclusive report on December 13, Deccan Chronicle highlighted the major scam unearthed by Teachers Recruitment Board in which 220 candidates found to be qualified in written test with fake marks. The report has created shock waves among the academics, administrators and the aspiring candidates.

After the scam report, the state government has conducted a top-level meeting on the actions to be taken against the corrupt elements.

“The board has given time to the candidates to submit their objections and representations on the new mark list which has had mark changes for around 200 candidates. So far, 120 representations were received by the board and majority of them were about the answer keys and other issues,” the source said.

Of 2,000 candidates who were called for certificate verification on November 7 on the basis of written test marks, around 220 candidates had qualified with fake marks in the test. Their original marks were inflated from 50 to 100 marks to make them eligible for certificate verification. Each candidate allegedly has paid Rs 25 lakhs to Rs 30 lakh to the touts.

Teachers Recruitment Board which has found out about the scam reduced marks for these 220 candidates after verifying their answer sheets.

It has withdrawn the results released on November 7 and published new results with OMR answer scripts on December 11. Totally, 1.33 lakh candidates appeared for polytechnic lecturers’ written test on September 16.

Recruitment scam

TRB has conducted written test for 1,058 lecturer posts in Government Polytechnic Colleges on September 16. Around 1.33 lakh students appeared for written test. Among 2000 candidates who were called for certificate verification over 220 candidates had fake marks. Their original marks were inflated from 50 to 100 marks to make them eligible for certificate verification. Each candidate allegedly paid Rs 25-30 lakh to the touts and around Rs 50 crore was collected from these candidates. After finding out the scam, the Teachers Recruitment Board has reduced marks for 220 candidates following the verification of OMR answer sheets

Recent recruitments

The Teachers Recruitment Board has conducted written tests for various posts including postgraduate assistants, assistant professors in government engineering colleges, lecturers in SCERT and special teachers recently. The court has stayed the 1,188 special teachers' recruitment process