Bengaluru: Sleuths attached to Central Crime Branch (CCB), probing into the alleged scam in the recruitment of Second Division Assistants (SDA) to fill the vacant backlog posts of ‘C’ cadre in Water Resources Department, have arrested a total of 48 suspects including 37 staffers and 11 middlemen with three of them being Government employees.

Those Government employees, who are arrested, are Anand, Principal of Morarji Desai Residential PU College, Kalaburagi, Krishna Gurunath Rathod, FDA at Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Limited (KPTCL) Office, Jog Falls and Gangur Pradeep, SDA, Water Resources Department, Hassan. 

Ravi of Hassan, Pradeep of Malavalli, N. Ningappa of Jewargi, Sindagi Mallikarjun Sampur of Vijayapura and Mustafa of Kalaburagi are among the  others arrested.

The CCB team has also seized two cars worth Rs. 48 lakh, 17 mobile phones and hard discs from those arrested.

The case: The Water Resources Department had invited applications online for the direct recruitment of candidates for 182 backlog SDA posts in ‘C’ cadre, in October 2022. Without conducting any written exam, the candidates were recruited on the basis of their good score in Second PUC Exams. Several aspirants had submitted the applications.

62 fake marks cards: During the verification of marks cards of candidates by the Officers of Recruitment Wing, the marks cards submitted by 62 candidates from 12 districts were found to be fake.

A complaint had been lodged in this regard at Sheshadripuram Police Station in July 2023. The case was later handed over to CCB, which has now arrested 48 suspects including ineligible candidates and middlemen. While 25 other ineligible candidates and six middlemen still remain at large, with the probe team launching a manhunt to nab them.