Jobs for sale: ED takes ex-KPSC chief into custody in veterinary recruitment scam

A government job is supposed to be the one door in India that opens only to merit. In Karnataka, investigators say that door was sold. The Enforcement Directorate has taken former Karnataka Public Service Commission chairman Shivashankarappa Sahukar and member B.V. Geetha into custody in the veterinary officer recruitment scam, based on what an accused IAS officer and another accused are said to have revealed.

The state CID case is stark: the examination held in January 2026 to pick 400 veterinary officers from about 1,400 candidates had its paper leaked a day early, on January 7. Fourteen candidates who took top ranks allegedly benefited from leaked papers sold for Rs 1.52 crore. Sahukar chaired the commission when the exam was conducted. A sessions court refused him anticipatory bail, holding that custodial questioning was needed to unearth the larger conspiracy, and the Karnataka High Court declined interim protection in August.

This is not Sahukar's first brush with the system he ran. He was suspended as chairman after a controversy over an income certificate in his family, which the High Court had sharply criticised. The ED's money-laundering probe now follows the cash: raids have covered his residence, the home of an IAS officer in Bengaluru, and veterinary officers linked to the recruitment.

Behind the legal language are the candidates who prepared honestly and lost to a purchased rank. Every leaked paper steals twice: once from the aspirant who deserved the post, and again from the public, which gets an officer who bought his way in to treat its animals and certify its food safety. Custody is a beginning. The question the case must answer is how far up, and how far across, the market in merit really ran.