Police have arrested an IAS officer from Thane district of Maharashtra in connection with the alleged malpractices in the results of the state-wide Teachers’ Eligibility Test (TET) held in 2020, an official said here on Saturday.
“The bureaucrat, Sushil Khodwekar, has been arrested from Thane. He will be produced in a court today,” the Pune police official said.
Khodwekar is currently posted as the deputy secretary in the agriculture department. However, he was formerly serving as deputy secretary of the school education and sports department.
He was remanded to police custody till January 31 by the court of Judge SJ Dolare with public prosecutor Vijaysinh Jadhav. Senior police inspector Kumar Ghadage is investigating the case.
Also Read: TET Exam Scam !
“Lot of evidence has pointed towards him with connections to the private players as well as those in the department. There are monetary trails as well. So far, his involvement is in TET 2020 but the investigation is underway,” said a senior officer involved in the investigation on condition of anonymity.
The total arrests in the case now stand at 13 which also includes Tukaram Supe, the Commissioner of Maharashtra State Council of Examination (MSCE), Pritesh Deshmukh, director of G A Software firm, which was responsible for conducting the exam, and Abhishek Sawrikar, a consultant with the education department, all arrested in December 2021.
According to the Pune police, marks of as many as 7,800 TET-2020 candidates were allegedly manipulated in exchange for huge sums of money.
(With inputs from agencies)
