The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed a final chargesheet running nearly 400 pages in the 2021 Chhattisgarh Public Service Commission (CGPSC) recruitment scam, naming 29 people as accused, including coaching institute operators, CGPSC officials and candidates with alleged political and administrative links. The agency has alleged a systematic manipulation of the examination process to favour select candidates.
According to the CBI, a coaching institute operator arranged targeted preparation sessions for chosen candidates at a hotel in Mahasamund district just days before the CGPSC mains examination. Investigators have claimed that the operator had prior access to the question papers and trained candidates accordingly, helping relatives of senior bureaucrats and influential business families secure top ranks.
Twelve of the accused are currently lodged in jail, including former CGPSC chairman Taman Singh Sonwani, former exam controller Aarti Wasnik, industrialist Shravan Goyal and members of his family. One accused, Utkarsh Chandrakar, has been shown as absconding in the chargesheet.
The probe has found that 13 of the top 20 selected candidates were related to serving or former officials, political leaders or influential businessmen. The CBI has accused Wasnik of directly leaking the question papers and facilitating their duplication. The papers were printed by a Kolkata-based firm and transported to Raipur in January 2021 by an employee, Mahesh Das, before being passed on to key conspirators, copied and resealed for official use.
The chargesheet further alleges that Shravan Goyal’s son, Shashank, and daughter-in-law, Bhumi Katiyar, received the leaked papers and were later appointed as deputy collectors. Investigators have said the manipulation extended beyond the examination stage to interviews, effectively bypassing merit-based selection and disadvantaging eligible candidates.
The case relates to the recruitment of 171 posts through the CGPSC 2021 examination cycle. The preliminary examination held on February 13, 2022, saw 2,565 candidates qualify, while 509 cleared the mains conducted in May 2022. The final selection list was released on May 11, 2023, after interviews.
The CBI has said the trial is expected to begin soon, with the chargesheet laying out detailed evidence of alleged collusion between CGPSC officials, coaching operators and favoured candidates.
