IAS Aspirant Caught Cheating In Exam Topped Ethics Paper

Hyderabad: In an irony of sorts, the IPS officer Safeer Karim, who was caught redhanded copying in UPSC Civil Services (Main) exam in Chennai on Monday, scored high in the ethics paper of the Civil Services-2014 exam.

Ethics paper tests the integrity of a candidate. By scoring high in the paper, Safeer managed to secure an all-India rank of 112.

Safeer, who completed engineering in electronics, scored top percentile in CAT, but instead of pursuing MBA, joined Vajiram and Ravi Academy in Delhi for civil services coaching. After learning the tricks in Delhi, he returned to Kerala and opened his own civil services coaching centers, Karim's La Excellence in Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram.

It was in his third attempt Safeer secured 112 rank in the 2014 Civils exam. The Kerala native had scored high in the ethics, integrity and aptitude paper, which had enabled him to secure a good rank.

The ethics paper was introduced by UPSC in 2013 to test integrity of a candidate. Safeer's case is the classic example of how the paper failed to test integrity of a candidate, who later went on to commit a fraud to shame the entire AIS officers' fraternity. He had scored 108 in the 250-mark paper in General Studies-4 (ethics, integrity and aptitude) paper. His scores in other three General Studies papers were comparatively less.

Safeer had secured 772 out of 1,750 marks in written exams and 178 out of 275 in the interview, with a cumulative of 950 out of 2,025 marks.

Integrity Of Coaching Centers Too Gets Dubious

Not just AIS officers, even directors of coaching centers condemned Safeer's shameful act. With the involvement of the owner of La Excellence IAS Coaching Center, the integrity of the civils coaching centers in Hyderabad too has also taken a beat. Hyderabad's Ashok Nagar is known for civil services coaching centers for decades and every year they produce good number of rankers in the country's prestigious exam.

La Excellence Coaching Center's Rambabu, an MBBS doctor, was also an IAS aspirant but could not succeed in his three attempts. Then he started his own coaching center in Hyderabad and he taught political science and public administration, the two popular optionals in civils. Students at his institute would call him doctor sir.

Safeer and Rambabu were known to each other since their Delhi coaching days. After getting selected to IPS in 2014, Safeer had undergone training in the Hyderabad-based National Police Academy and married Joyce who belonged to his native Kerala state. Safeer wanted to make his wife an IAS, but on the advice of Rambabu, he opened two civils coaching institutes in Trivendrum and Cochin which were managed by Joyce.

Modus Operandi

Joyce with the help of Rambabu was sending answers to her husband who was writing the exam at a center in Chennai. Safeer had put a tiny camera in shirt buttons and a hearing device in his ear. He would take the pictures of the question paper and they are automatically uploaded to his Google drive. Joyce would access the paper sitting in La Excellence Coaching Center and with the help of Rambabu, answers would be prepared and read out in the microphone carried by Safeer in the exam center.

Safeer wrote an exam using this method on Saturday and was about to write the second paper on Monday when the exam center officials got a suspecion on Safeer and alerted the police. Safeer was arrested immediately from the exam center while Joyce and Rambabu were taken into custody from the coaching center in Hyderabad on Tuesday. They were shifted to Chennai for further investigation.