Mumbai: 2 booked for indulging in malpractice during police recruitment exam

The police have registered a criminal offence against two persons for indulging in malpractice during the police recruitment exam. One of the accused persons had acted as a dummy candidate on behalf of the other accused while appearing for the written exam, police said.

Those booked have been identified as Aurangabad resident SG Shelar and Pune resident D Gowadkonda.

According to the police, the complainant in the case is assistant police inspector Rahul Prabhu. On November 14, last year, police constable recruitment exam at different examination centres across the state and 109276 candidates had appeared for the 1076 police constable posts.

"Probe had revealed that Gowadkonda had appeared for the written test on behalf of one of the candidates, Shelar. Gowadkonda had acted as a dummy candidate. This fact was established by going through the documents and video footage of the exam centre. A case has been registered in this regard," said a police officer.

The duo has been booked under sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 34 (common intention), 419 (cheating by personation), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 465 (forgery), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) and 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record) of the Indian Penal Code.

Last month, scrutiny of videos taken during the physical test for police recruitment had brought to light at least eight cases of dummy candidates and the Bhoiwada police had booked 16 people including eight dummy and eight real candidates and arrested 10 of them in the said cases.