Bhubaneswar: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday filed a detailed charge-sheet against 16 individuals, including alleged mastermind Shankar Prusty, in connection with the Odisha Police Sub-Inspector (SI) recruitment examination scam.

The preliminary charge-sheet, submitted before a designated CBI court in Bhubaneswar, contains documentary and material evidence against the accused, who are alleged to have orchestrated a systematic manipulation of the recruitment examination results.

Key Accused

Among those named are:

• Shankar Prusty – alleged mastermind
• Muna Mohanty – close associate of Prusty
• Suresh Nayak
• Soumya Priyadarshini Samal
• Rinku Maharana
• Biranchi Nayak
• Nitish Kumar

Of the 16 accused, nine were initially arrested by the Odisha Crime Branch, while the remaining seven were taken into custody by the CBI after it assumed charge of the investigation. All were produced before the court following custodial interrogation.

Modus Operandi

The investigation revealed that Prusty, a resident of Hinjili, leveraged his connections with senior officials, politicians, and police officers to manipulate the examination process. He allegedly used his companies, Panchsoft Tech Private Limited and Kedarnath Technologies, to facilitate the scam.

• Mohanty allegedly recruited candidates and arranged their training in Andhra Pradesh.
• The SI recruitment exam, scheduled for the first week of October, was cancelled after the question paper leak was discovered.
• The Odisha Police Recruitment Board (OPRB) had outsourced the exam to ITI Limited, which subcontracted Silicon Techlab Pvt Ltd, and further to Panchsoft Technologies, a Bhubaneswar-based IT firm.

The syndicate reportedly leaked question papers from the day they were prepared, collecting original certificates and blank cheques from aspirants in exchange for access to leaked papers, charging ₹20-25 lakh per candidate.

Operational Details

• Fake online test centres were set up across Bhubaneswar, Raghunathpur, Berhampur, Balasore, Puri, Gajapati, Cuttack, and Bhawanipatna for pre-exam manipulation and monitoring candidates.
• The scam was executed in two modules:
  • Vizianagaram, Andhra Pradesh – overseen by Mohanty
  • Digha, West Bengal – overseen by Arvind Das
• Prusty reportedly monitored the entire operation from Delhi.

The charge-sheet lays bare a well-coordinated syndicate involving multiple states and agencies, highlighting the scale and sophistication of the recruitment examination fraud.