1,701 candidates’ marks changed in TET-18: Pune police

PUNE: The city cyber police on Wednesday filed a 2,625-page chargesheet related to the Teachers Eligibility Test (TET)-2018 malpractice case which stated that marks of 1,701 candidates were manipulated to declare them eligible for teaching jobs in state-run education institutes.
This comes a day after the cyber police had filed a 4,000-plus page chargesheet relating to the TET-2019 malpractice case.
The then commissioner of Maharashtra state council of examination, Tukaram Supe, his predecessor, Sukhdev Dere, Pritish Deshmukh and Ashwini Kumar, director and former manager, respectively, of the GA software company, which was hired for providing end-to-end conduct of TET, and agents Ankush Harkal, Santosh Harkal, Swapnil Patil and Suranjit Patil, who brought candidates to manipulate marks for money, are among the 12 arrested persons named in the TET-2018 chargesheet.
Deputy commissioner of police (Cyber) Bhagyashri Navatake and inspector Ajay Waghmare submitted the TET-2018 chargesheet before Judicial Magistrate (First Class) Shraddha Dolare.
Waghmare told TOI, “We have also identified 16 more people , who had an active involvement in the malpractice. We have named them in the chargesheet and are searching for them. In this case, the arrested government officials, software company’s officers and the agents manipulated the marks of 1,701 TET candidates.”
As many as 1.57 lakh candidates had appeared for the TET-2018 and out of them, 9,677 candidates were declared eligible for teaching jobs. “These 9,677 qualified candidates included the candidates who gave money to become eligible as teachers,” Waghmare said.
“On a scrutiny of all results, we found that the marks of 1,701 candidates were manipulated either directly while publishing the results online or publishing the results by changing the marks of the candidates on the domain of MSCE,” the officer said.
The police have collected all the digital evidence as well as marks sheets issued by the MSCE to the 1701 candidates during investigations. The police said it was a well-planned racket, as all the arrested persons were linked to each other.