The Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday, November 4 conducted search operations at multiple locations in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh in a case relating to the evaluation of answer scripts of the Group-I Main Examination conducted by the Andhra Pradesh Public Service Commission (APPSC), IANS reported. The searches were carried out under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) at seven premises in Hyderabad and Secunderabad in Telangana and in Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh.

Source: IANS

The case relates to alleged irregularities in the manual evaluation of the APPSC Group-I Main Examination answer scripts, in the course of which an amount of Rs 1,14,32,312 was alleged to have been paid to a private party, officials said. The premises searched included those of IPS officer P Sitarama Anjaneyulu, who was the Secretary of the APPSC at the time; Camsign Media Pvt. Ltd., the private party to which the work of manual evaluation was entrusted, and its Managing Director P. Madhusudhana Rao; and Aavasa Resort Haailand in Chinakakani village, Guntur district — the premises where the answer scripts were kept and the evaluation exercise was carried out, IANS reported.

Source: IANS

Searches were also conducted at the premises of TruGrader Services, a division of Stone Media Advisory Services Pvt. Ltd., which had conducted the earlier digital evaluation for the APPSC, its Managing Director Akella Peri Srinivasa Rao, and Mahamkali Raghuram, who was engaged in connection with the evaluation work. The ED case, registered under the PMLA, stems from a 2025 FIR filed by the Andhra Pradesh Police for alleged irregularities that took place between 2018 and 2021, when the APPSC had issued a notification to fill 169 posts, PTI reported.

Source: PTI

Anjaneyulu, a 1992-batch Indian Police Service officer, was the Secretary of the APPSC at that time, while Camsign Media was given the work of manual evaluation, according to the ED. PTI reported that the officer had earlier served as head of police intelligence in the DGP rank, and that he was also arrested by the state police CID in 2025 in a separate case relating to the alleged harassment and wrongful arrest of a Mumbai-based female actor — an allegation in a separate matter.

Source: PTI

The background is a long-running examination dispute. The APPSC Group-I notification was issued on December 31, 2018, the preliminary examination was held on May 26, 2019 and the Main written examination in December 2020. The APPSC initially adopted a digital evaluation process and declared the Mains results on April 28, 2021, shortlisting 326 candidates for interviews. The digital evaluation was then questioned before the Andhra Pradesh High Court on the ground that such a method was not contemplated in the notification, resulting in an interim order staying the interviews, after which the High Court directed the APPSC to undertake manual evaluation of the answer scripts, IANS reported.

Source: IANS

A Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Andhra Pradesh Police, headed by DGP (CID) Ravi Shankar Ayyanar and constituted through a government order dated February 14, 2026, probed the alleged violations in both the digital and manual evaluation of answer sheets. The SIT reportedly found multiple lapses, including significant procedural deviations, and said the evaluator panel was neither sourced nor vetted in the manner required by the APPSC Office Manual, with persons outside the approved panel evaluating scripts and being paid for it, NationPress reported. The ED's searches mark the case moving from the state police probe into a federal money-laundering investigation; what the searches recover, and whether summons or further action follows, is awaited.

Source: NationPress