Cuttack: Orissa high court on Friday refused bail to 14 accused arrested in connection with the alleged assistant section officer (ASO)-2024 recruitment examination paper leak scam in Jan and Feb, describing it as a ‘direct assault on the socio-economic fabric of society’ and a serious blow to public faith in merit-based recruitment.Rejecting the batch of bail petitions, Justice Gourishankar Satapathy said the alleged conspiracy was not an ordinary criminal offence but a socio-economic crime of enormous magnitude that undermined public confidence in the recruitment process. “Leaking question papers and supplying model answer sheets to aspiring candidates corrodes the morale of meritorious candidates,” the court observed, adding that such acts amount to “a crime against society” that “no civilised society can ever accept.”The court stressed that although the investigation was completed and chargesheets filed, the filing of the chargesheet and the period already spent in custody were insufficient grounds for granting bail in a case involving allegations of organised manipulation of a public recruitment examination.Justice Satapathy observed that allowing undeserving candidates to secure govt jobs through corrupt means deprives deserving aspirants of employment and erodes faith in meritocracy. The order noted that recent incidents of organised paper leak syndicates have disrupted competitive examinations across the country, generating huge illegal financial gains while destroying hopes of lakhs of honest candidates.According to the prosecution, middlemen allegedly assured candidates of success in the examination by charging between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 4 lakh. Investigators alleged that candidates were taken to coaching centres in Bhubaneswar, Cuttack and Berhampur, where they were supplied handwritten model answers matching the actual exam questions and asked to memorise them before appearing in the test.The investigating agency claimed to have seized leaked question papers, model answer sheets, mobile phones, hard disks, other electronic devices, financial transaction records and candidate data. It also analysed call detail records during the probe.The court noted that the recruitment drive by the high court for 147 ASO posts had received 32,239 applications, of which 32,189 candidates were found eligible. While 20,260 candidates appeared in the preliminary examination, 7,116 qualified for the main examination and more than 5,000 took the test before it was cancelled following allegations of question paper leakage and large-scale malpractice.Observing that some accused were also alleged to have links with similar recruitment examination frauds, the high court dismissed all 14 bail applications.
