Lucknow: The Economic Offences Wing of UP Police arrested former IAS officer Yogesh Kumar in connection with alleged irregularities in the 2014 recruitment of Livestock Extension Officers in the state’s animal husbandry department.
Police said the recruitment process was not conducted in accordance with the UP Livestock Extension and Poultry Development Service Rules and the amended rules of 2013. Irregularities were also alleged in the evaluation of Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) answersheets and the preparation of the merit list. Kumar, who was principal secretary of the department at the time of the recruitment process, was arrested from his Gomti Nagar residence in Lucknow on Wednesday.
The case pertains to the recruitment of 1,198 livestock extension officers against vacancies in 17 divisions of Uttar Pradesh , excluding the Saharanpur division. The written exam for recruitment was held on Feb 2, 2014. State govt had assigned the investigation into the alleged recruitment irregularities to a Special Investigation Team in 2017. Following the investigation, a case was registered at the SIT police station in 2019 under FIR No. 01/2019. The charges include Sections 409 (criminal breach of trust by a public servant), 420 (cheating), 467, 468 and 471 (offences relating to forgery and the use of forged documents), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence) of the IPC, along with Section 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act.