Indian Railways cancels all departmental selections for promotions 

Indian Railways cancels promotions due to irregularities in departmental selections, following question paper leak in East Central Railway.

The Indian Railways has cancelled all departmental selections of employees for promotions within the Group-C category for which results have not been published as on March 5, 2025.

Admitting several irregularities in the departmental selections held in the recent past, the railways decided to revisit the entire framework of Limited Departmental Competitive Examination and General Departmental Competitive Examinations. “No further selections may be initiated until further orders. Further instructions to regulate the selections will be issued in due course,” the Railway Board said in an order to General Managers of all Zonal Railways.

According to railway sources, employees serving in subordinate ranks across departments can be selected for higher grade posts in Group-C category through LDCE which has a quota varying between 30% to 70% depending upon the vacancies. Once appointed to Group-C, they would become eligible for further selection for officer category posts in Group-B.

The decision of the railways to cancel LDCE/GDCE selections comes a day after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) exposed question paper leak in East Central Railway at Mughal Sarai. At least 17 candidates who had applied for the post of Chief Loco Inspector were found to be possession of hand written question papers.

Acting on a specific information, CBI officials conducted searches at three places on the intervening night of March 3/4 and intercepted the 17 candidates who had allegedly paid money to get copies of the question papers. The investigating agency said that searches were conducted at 8 locations where Rs. 1.17 crore cash that was paid by the candidates was seized.

The CBI arrested 26 railway employees, including the 17 candidates and the Senior Divisional Electrical Engineer, Mughal Sarai. The hand-written question papers along with their photocopies were seized. The question papers tallied when compared with the original/actual question paper.