Silicon Techlab’s Suresh Nayak arrested

Bhubaneswar: Another person was arrested in connection with the sub-inspector recruitment “scam” in Odisha on Monday, police said. With the arrest of Silicon Techlab CEO Suresh Chandra Nayak, a total of 125 people, including 114 job aspirants, have been held in the case. The job aspirants were, however, released on bail three days ago.

Nayak was arrested days after police nabbed Sankar Prusty, the owner of Panchsoft Technologies. The Odisha Police Recruitment Board (OPRB) had outsourced the conduct of the Combined Police Service Examination (CPSE) 2024 for the appointment of 933 sub-inspectors to PSU ITI Ltd, which further sub-contracted the work to Bhubaneswar-based Silicon Techlab. Silicon Techlab, in turn, assigned key responsibilities to Panchsoft Technologies. The recruitment examination was scheduled to be held on October 5 and 6, but was postponed after the irregularities were detected, officials said. The irregularities were detected after the 114 aspirants and three suspected brokers were nabbed on the night of September 29 at the State’s border with Andhra Pradesh when they were going to a “special coaching” centre in Vizianagaram from Bhubaneswar. The arrested aspirants had paid Rs 10 lakh each to the racket, and were supposed to pay another Rs 15 lakh after securing the job, police said.

Meanwhile, Prusty has claimed that the scam involved irregularities worth Rs 1,000 crore, and he “surrendered” to unmask those involved in the conspiracy. The Opposition BJD alleged that the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) was directly involved in the scam.

“Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi is the Home Minister, and the OPRB conducted the examination. How come Prusty’s organisation, Panchsoft Technology, got the contract without the knowledge of the Chief Minister,” BJD’s Rajya Sabha member Sulata Deo said.

The BJD spokesperson, Lenin Mohanty, alleged that the State government first announced a Crime Branch probe and then a CBI investigation to “protect the big leaders involved in it”.