Online CGL Exam leak 2017: CBI arrests 3 accused

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The Central Bureau of Investigation has arrested three accused in an ongoing investigation relating to leakage in online CGL examination in 2017. 

Searches were conducted at four places including Delhi and Ghaziabad which led to the recovery of incriminating documents and articles.

All the arrested accused, produced before the Special Judge, CBI Cases in Delhi, were remanded to police custody till June 10, 2019.

Earlier in 2018, CBI had registered the case under sections 120-B, 420 of IPC, section 13(2) r/w 13(1)(d) of PC Act. 1988 and section 66D of IT Act against certain private persons including candidates, officials of the Noida (Uttar Pradesh) based private technology company and unknown officials of SSC & other unknown persons on the allegations of criminal conspiracy cheating, criminal misconduct by the public servants and cheating by personation by using computer resources with regard to conduct of online CGL Tier-II Examination, 2017. 

The Staff Selection Commission (SSC) had conducted the online examination in August, 2017 for the Combined Graduate Level (CGL) Tier –I Examination, 2017. Those candidates who cleared the cut off list of the Tier-I Examination appeared for the online CGL Tier-II Examination, 2017 in February, 2018, which was scheduled from 17.02.2018 to 22.02.2018. 

For conducting this CGL Examination, SSC had executed an agreement with the Noida (Uttar Pradesh) based Private Technologies Company for outsourcing. 

According to the agreement, the private company was entrusted to conduct the computer mode examination and was also responsible for identification and preparation of test centres across India, preparation of adequate number of questions for making sets of the question paper, capturing biometric and photograph of candidate’s registration, CCTV recording of each examination lab, etc. 

The company was also responsible to block the computers of the candidates from any access to all possible web resources for browsing, chatting etc.

It was further alleged that the computers of some candidates were remotely accessed by unknown persons with the help of software which was not supposed to be installed in the PCs of the candidates. These candidates were allegedly helped by the unknown persons (agent/solvers) in solving questions. It was also alleged that screen shots of some of the questions of the CGL Tier-II Exam, 2017 were leaked on social media and had gone viral. 

The answer keys of the Quantitative Ability (QA) examination dated 21.02.2018 were also allegedly found on social media i.e. on the Facebook page of SSCTUBE at 10:10 am on 21.02.2018, while this examination was scheduled to be held at 10:30 am on that day.  Searches were also conducted on 23.05.2018 at the various premises of the identified labs and official premises of the said private company and accused including Delhi, Noida, Mumbai, Chennai, Shimla, Jaipur, Patna.

CBI had earlier conducted Preliminary Enquiry on a complaint from the Staff Selection Commission, New Delhi on the allegations of malpractices in the recruitment examinations conducted by SSC for CGL (Tier-II), including alleged leakage of question papers, deficiency observed in the conduct of the examination by the service provider and other related issues.