Maharashtra: 90,000 MPSC aspirants' admit cards leak on Telegram, case registered

The Belapur police registered a case against an unidentified person after more than 94,000 admit cards of non-gazetted Group B and Group C cadres exam of Maharashtra Public Service Commission (MPSC) were leaked on a Telegram channel. The exam has been scheduled on April 30 at 1475 centres across 37 districts.

Sunil Harishchandra Avtade, Joint Secretary of MPSC approached the Belapur police after he came to know about the illegal downloading of admit cards of students and publishing them on a Telegram Channel “MPSC 2023 A” on April 23.

Hall tickets illegally published

As per the complainant, a total of 4,66,455 candidates were registered for the examination. And, the admit card or Hall Tickets of 94,195 students were downloaded illegally and published on the Telegram channel.

In addition, the Pre-Exam Question Paper 2023 was also available on the Telegram Channel. The examination will be conducted at 1475 schools/colleges in 37 district centers of Maharashtra including Mumbai, and Navi Mumbai.

According to police, the admit card for the examination was made available on the MPSC website on April 21, 2023. Since the number of students was large, the commission also made available a separate link "Admission Certificate" on the commission's website https://mpsc.gov.in under "online facilities". Through the external link, candidates can download the admit card by mentioning their registered mobile number with the commission and entering the OTP received on it.

The IT work was outsourced

The commissioner has outsourced IT work to SMB Systems Pvt. Ltd in November 2021 through a tendering process. As per the information provided by the IT firm, a large number of admit cards of candidates were downloaded unauthorizedly from the IP address 20.51.208.214. In addition, PDF files of certificates were made available on the Telegram channel MPSC 2023 A.

Meanwhile, the police registered a case against an unidentified person under sections 43 (b), 43 (A), 65 and 66 of the IT Act. The case has been transferred to the Cyber Cell of Navi Mumbai police.