Guwahati: A special court here on Monday gave Rakesh Kumar Paul, former chairman of Assam Public Service Commission (APSC) 14 years of imprisonment in the cash for jobs scam that involved recruitment of agriculture development officers during 2015.
Two former members of the commission, Samedur Rahman and Basanta Kumar Doley, were also sentenced to imprisonment of 10 years in the same case.
The three were convicted in the case by the special court on July 22. At least 29 other candidates, who were also convicted, were given imprisonment of four years each.
Paul has already spent five and half years in jail and is out on bail in the case since March last year.
While giving the punishment, the court of special judge Dipak Thakuria said "orchestrator and mastermind" of the scam has to be dealt with in a manner that commensurate with the gravity of the act and also act as deterrent.
"The gravest danger of such corrupt system of recruitment is that it operates incognito, like termites hollowing a house without the knowledge of its inhabitants," the judge said in the 35-page order on Monday.
A total of 80 candidates were selected during Paul's tenure but it created controversy when a candidate filed a case in August 2017 alleging that Paul and others had demanded a bribe of Rs 15 lakh from him with a promise of clearing the interview.
The results of the examinations were declared in 2016. But after the case was registered in 2017, police examined 1,075 candidates who had appeared for the examination and found that marks secured by 27 candidates were altered and increased.
"It appears that the Commission under the leadership of accused Rakesh Kumar Paul violated the Assam Agriculture Service Rules, 1980 and by passing the conditions given in the published advertisement awarded marks in additional qualification and experience to the candidates. The marks under the head of additional qualification and experience were also not given judiciously; but awarded whimsically.
The Commission violated the APSC Rules 2010, particularly Rule 19, did not allow the Principal Controller of Examinations to perform his duty and in the name of selecting right candidates, they did what they liked and selected their favourable candidates. Besides, some deserving candidates who got cut off marks or more in the interview, simply made them unqualified by reducing their marks in the merit list. The entire interview process was a mockery," the special judge had said while convicting Paul and others on July 22.