Chairman of RRB arrested by CBI

HYDERABAD/NEW DELHI: CBI today arrested S N Sharma, suspended Chairman of the Railway Recruitment Board, Mumbai and another senior officer in connection with the alleged multi-crore Railway recruitment scam.

Sharma was arrested for his role in the job scam in which his son and seven others had earlier been apprehended.

G Sethi, senior divisional personnel officer at Raipur, was also arrested today by CBI in connection with the same case. The two will be produced in the CBI Court here tomorrow, CBI DIG V V Lakshmi Narayana said.

He said both Sharma and Sethi were called from Mumbai and Raipur for questioning into the leakage of question papers.

The eight arrested earlier were today remanded to three days of police custody, CBI spokesperson Harsh Bhal said in New Delhi.

The CBI had on June 19 claimed to have unearthed a multi-crore Railway recruitment scam and had arrested eight persons, including Vivek Bhardwaj Sharma, son of Sharma, A K Jagannatham, the then ADRM in Raipur and his son Srujan.

The Railways suspended Sharma and said that it will provide all cooperation to the CBI in its investigation. The CBI had received a go-ahead from the Railway Board to probe the role of Sharma on June 21.

The CBI alleged that the accused in the scam used to charge Rs 3.5 lakh from an aspirant to leak the question paper for the posts of Assistant Loco Pilot and Assistant Station Master.

"The case was registered in Hyderabad on June 15. This scam relates to the examinations of Assistant Loco Pilot and Assistant Station Master held on June 6 and June 13 respectively.

"It is estimated that the scam runs into several crores of Rupees. Furtehr investigation is continuing," Bhal said.

The agency claimed that Jagannatham was the kingpin of the scam and that there was deal of Rs one crore with some RRB officials to leak the question paper.

As part of the deal, an amount Rs 55 lakh was already paid to the officials of RRB, Mumbai, it said.

With regard to the modus operandi, the agency alleged the job seekers were required to deposit their original certificates with Jagannatham. The question paper was provided to them one day prior to the examination and the certificates were returned after the payment of the complete amount.

The CBI had earlier claimed several documents relating to the scam have been found during searches in Kolkata, Hyderabad and Raipur.