By IANS
Bhubaneswar : Three Orissa education board officials have been arrested for having awarded more marks to the son of a former state education minister than the boy had actually scored in this year’s Class 10 examination, a vigilance department official said Monday.
School and Mass Education minister Bishnu Charan Das had resigned in August this year following allegations that he had directed officials of his department to increase the marks of his son in the high school certificate examination.
An official of Orissa’s Board of Secondary Education (BSE) had alleged earlier this year that Das’s son Bijoy Shankar Das was awarded 89 marks in Oriya instead of the 39 that he had actually scored, 80 in English against 50, 60 in mathematics instead of 40, 50 in science instead of 40, and 54 instead of 45 in social science.
The state government had suspended at least eight employees of the education board who had conducted the examination and ordered a crime branch inquiry into the matter.
B.K. Sharma, inspector general of the state vigilance department, told IANS that the crime branch Sunday arrested former secretary of the board Minaketan Pani, controller of examinations Manmohan Swain, and section officer Nityananda Sutar on charges of manipulating and tampering with Bijoy Shankar’s mark sheet.
“The crime branch suspects the involvement of more people in the scam and will soon arrest them,” Sharma said.