Cries of 'Agniveer Scam' As Candidates Who Scored Below Cut-Off Mark Make it to Merit List

Gwalior: Amid the scams happening in government recruitments across the country, a fresh controversy has surfaced in Madhya Pradesh regarding the Agnipath scheme of the Army. Some candidates have alleged rigging in the recruitment examination for Agniveer held in Jabalpur in September-November 2022  and claimed that they were not selected despite scoring more marks than a candidate whose name appeared in the ‘list of selected candidates’.

The controversy snowballed so much that many candidates, including Satna resident Aman Dwivedi, who was not selected in the said recruitment, filed a petition in the state high court in December 2022.

Recently, on July 1, the Madhya Pradesh high court directed the Army to provide information about the marks obtained by all the candidates selected during the recruitment of Agniveer in Jabalpur to the petitioners within 15 days. Note that earlier the Army had refused to disclose the marks, calling it third-party and private information.

Read The Wire Hindi’s special investigation on this issue.

RTI petitions and court battles

The physical test of the Army’s Jabalpur Recruitment Rally was held in September 2022 under the Agnipath scheme, and the written examination was held on November 13 that year. The combined result was declared on November 26, 2022. Many candidates who were dissatisfied with the result approached the Madhya Pradesh high court and also filed a right to information (RTI) petition before the Army to know the marks they had scored, the cut-off and marks obtained by other candidates.

All the petitioners had prepared for army recruitment at Bahadur Physical Academy in Rewa. The academy is run by former soldier Lal Bahadur Gautam.

According to an RTI reply, Nitish Kumar Tiwari (roll number – 140241) had secured 159 marks in the combined physical test (88) and written test (71). Nitish Kumar’s name was included in the list of selected candidates in the exam results declared in November (the list can be seen below). Many candidates were taken aback because in response to another candidate’s RTI the army had claimed that the cut-off for selected students was 169.

However, Nitish told The Wire Hindi, “I failed the medical test held a month after the results were declared in November 2022 and a day before the joining. So, I could not join the army.”

About one and a half months after being excluded on medical grounds, in a reply to Nitish’s RTI (see the first photo related to the RTI reply above), the Army Recruitment Headquarters (Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh) gave information about his marks on February 16, 2023, and said, “He passed, but could not make it to the merit list.” However, the army’s own exam result shows that his roll number was included in the list of selected students, that is, the merit list. According to the exam results available on the army website, Nitish Kumar’s name is still recorded in the list of ‘selected candidates’.

Nitish Kumar Tiwari’s roll number in the exam was 140241, which can be seen in the list of selected candidates.

“After the RTI, my suspicion was proved right that there was rigging in the selection of Agniveers,” said Gautam. “Many of my students scored between 160 and 167 marks. Names of none of them appeared in the list of selected candidates, but Nitish, who scored 159, got his roll number in the list. How?”

According to the RTI, several failed students have scored more than Nitish Kumar. For example, Sujeet Kumar Rawat (160.5), Vikas Singh (163), Abhishek Verma (165.5), Sachin Singh (166.5) and Saurabh Singh (167).

Gautam alleged that Nitish’s name was suddenly dropped from the list despite being selected because as soon as the results were declared in November the candidates went to the high court (in the first week of December). “The army officials must have realised that selecting Nitish with marks below the eligibility criteria could land them in trouble. So, they made the last ditch effort to save themselves by dropping his name on the pretext of failing in medical.”

The advocate representing the Government of India in the Madhya Pradesh high court argued that this matter did not come under the jurisdiction of the court and only the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) could hear it. Following this, the high court dismissed the case on December 13, 2022, asking the parties to approach the AFT. When the petitioners approached the AFT, they were told that “since the petitioners are not part of the army, the AFT does not have the right to hear the matter”.

Meanwhile, some candidates had received information about the cut-off marks of 169 along with the information of the marks obtained in response to their RTI petitions which strengthened their doubts. Gautam told The Wire Hindi that he had sought information about the marks of all the selected students through RTI, but the Army refused to divulge the information citing Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act, calling it private and related to a third party. (The Army’s reply in this regard can be read in the copies of the RTI attached above.)

After being turned down by the AFT, Gautam again approached the Madhya Pradesh high court through some of his students who were not selected, who were petitioners in the case from the beginning, and challenged the recruitment process, calling it opaque and arbitrary. The hearing on this matter started again on January 9, 2023. The public interest litigation (PIL) demanded that the marks obtained by the candidates in the examination and the cut-off marks be disclosed.

Deputy Solicitor General (DSG) Pushpendra Yadav, appearing for the Government of India and others in the court, argued that the marks of the selected candidates to the petitioners cannot be disclosed as the information sought falls in the category of private information of third parties, which cannot be provided.

Justice Vishal Dhagat, hearing the case, rejected DSG Yadav’s argument and said that in any competitive examination where students are competing with each other, disclosure of their marks is not private information.

“The petitioners have demanded the marks of other competing candidates. All the candidates had participated in the public examination. The marks obtained by the candidates in the examination are a public activity and every candidate has the right to know about the marks obtained by other candidates. If the marks of other candidates are disclosed, it will not violate the private information of any candidate,” the court said.

Calling this order relevant in view of the rigging in various examinations, petitioners’ lawyer NPS Ruprah said, “In future, care should be taken that in Agniveer or any other selection process, all the selected and excluded candidates should be informed about their marks and cut-off marks. The more transparency there is in the selection process, the lesser will be the possibility of corruption.”

The Wire Hindi has emailed a list of questions in this regard to Jabalpur Recruitment Headquarters (Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh), but no reply has been received so far. The reply will be added to this report as and when it is received.

Meanwhile, the spokesperson for the Indian Army, without referring to specific and serious issues raised in the report and by the high court has referred to a tweet by a senior journalist on this story as “misleading and arising out of inadequate knowledge on the subject.”

It has also said, “The Recruitment process in #IndianArmy is governed by norms, rules and policies, objectively followed in the instant case. #IndianArmy is committed towards a fair and transparent recruitment system.”

Translated from Hindi by Naushin Rehman. 

This article first appeared on The Wire Hindi.