Uttarakhand HC dismisses plea for CBI probe into question paper leak case

The Uttarakhand High Court on Wednesday rejected a petition asking for a CBI investigation into the State Subordinate Services Selection Board question paper leak issue. The petition was submitted by Congressman and deputy opposition leader in the state assembly Bhuvan Kapri. The Special Task Force (STF) investigation into the case was questioned by the court earlier, and the petitioner was asked why he believed it was flawed. The lone bench instructed the state administration to produce a comprehensive diagram outlining how the anomalies happened and how the people involved in the case were appointed. The petitioner was also asked by the court to clarify his locus standi for filing a PIL.

The STF has made 34 arrests so far. According to Kapri’s PIL, the STF has only so far detained the “little fish” while the “big fish” is still at large. According to the appeal, the STF has been unable to identify the true offenders in the case despite the suspicions around the involvement of numerous prominent officers and leaders from Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

In the PIL, Kapri also claimed that the government was attempting to protect the offenders. In addition, Sanjiv Kumar Chauhan, the brother of RMS TechnoSolutions Pvt Ltd’s owner Rajesh Chauhan, was detained by the STF after he accompanied another detained suspect, Sandeep Sharma, and over 20 candidates from the Udham Singh Nagar district to an apartment in Ghaziabad in order to assist them in resolving the question paper that had been leaked. The STF has practically finished its investigation in the matter, 42 persons have been arrested, and a charge sheet has also been submitted in the case, according to the High Court, which denied the plea asking for a CBI investigation.