The Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) investigation into the Karnataka Public Service Commission (KPSC) veterinary recruitment scam found that six candidates allegedly received answer keys before the January 9, 2026, entrance exam in exchange for bribes. Investigators compared candidates’ Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) sheets with two answer keys published by the Karnataka Public Service Commission, identifying discrepancies that pointed to a suspected leak involving senior officers.The agency had arrested KPSC chairman Shivashankarappa Sahukar and member B V Geetha on October 6.A comparison of the copies of OMR sheets (the answer sheets) in the possession of suspected candidates with an initial list of correct answers revealed that around six candidates got all the first 80 answers correct in the examination, sources said.However, when the KPSC published a revised list of correct answers a few days after the first list of correct answers, the candidates who previously got almost all 80 answers correct got around six to seven of the answers wrong – which suggested to investigators that the initial, uncorrected answer keys for the entrance examination were leaked to some aspirants.Ex-KPSC chairman, member took bribesThe ED investigation has now revealed that Sahukar and Geetha took bribes from aspirants — who got the first, third, eighth, ninth, 11th and 12th positions in the test written by 1,400 candidates — to leak the initial answer keys after obtaining them from KPSC exam controller Gyanendra Gangwar, IAS.“The exact match of these candidates’ answer options with the initial answer key published by the KPSC raised suspicion, and when enquired about the said pattern, the candidates admitted that they were provided with the Correct Answer Options just one day before the exam, i.e., on 08/01/2026,” the ED informed a special court on October 7 when the arrested KPSC chairman and member were produced for hearing in custody.Also read | KPSC scam: How failed employee, money-lender became Karnataka jobs body chiefWhen the OMR answer sheets of six suspected candidates were compared with the initial answer keys published by the KPSC on its website, it was found that the answers match exactly with the initial answer keys put out by the KPSC till question no 80, the ED has stated.Story continues below this adThe ED’s probe has revealed that the then KPSC exam controller, IAS officer Gyanendra Kumar Gangwar — who is accused of leaking the entrance exam questions and answers to facilitate cheating by a separate batch of 11 aspirants who finished in the top 14 ranks also leaked the initial answer keys to the KPSC chairman and member to assist six aspirants in the exam.“Details such as the answer keys of different series (of question papers), the seating arrangement of candidates, and which series will be allotted to a given candidate (based on their seating arrangement) are not accessible to members or the KPSC chairman,” and are the exclusive domain of the KPSC Controller of Examination, ED sources said.How answer keys distributed to 6 aspirantsDuring the investigations, Gangwar told the ED that he provided the answer keys for the first 80 questions for six students to KPSC member Geetha on the basis of the “scrambled chart and candidates’ seating arrangement” in the exam halls.Also read | What BJP, Congress ignored in Karnataka jobs scam: Bribes, withholding of marks, leaked papersWhile the first rank winner in the entrance exam was given the answer keys for the D series and S series of questions in the General Science and specific Veterinary Science papers, the third rank winner got the answer keys in the B and Q series, respectively, the ED probe has found.Story continues below this ad“Since both the answer keys are different, they could not have got it without the help of insiders,” the ED has stated while implicating the suspended KPSC chairman, member and former controller of exams in the recruitment fraud.The now-arrested Gangwar has claimed during the ED investigations that he did not want to leak the question papers for the veterinarians entrance exam at the eleventh hour of the exam and, hence, provided only the answer key for 80 questions based on the candidate names and roll numbers provided by Geetha.The answer keys for 80 questions, which were written on a piece of paper, were passed on to the third-rank winner by a representative of then KPSC chairman Sahukar at a hotel in North Bengaluru the evening before the exam with instructions to memorize and reproduce.A Rs 20-lakh deal struck with 3rd rankholderThe KPSC chairman allegedly struck a deal for Rs 20 lakh with the father of the third-rank candidate to facilitate her recruitment and collected Rs 10 lakh as advance, according to the ED’s submissions in court this week.Story continues below this adThe first-rank winner was allegedly provided the answer keys on a piece of paper – for the first 80 questions that would feature in his D and S series question papers on the exam day – by Geetha near a club in North Bengaluru, in exchange for an advance of Rs 20 lakh in a Rs 40 lakh deal.The ED has quoted the statements of parents of candidates to indicate that the KPSC chairman sought Rs 50 lakh for leaking the answer keys to the third-rank candidate but settled for Rs 20 lakh with an advance of Rs 10 lakh, while the KPSC member sought Rs 50 lakh and settled for Rs 40 lakh with an advance of Rs 20 lakh.The first rank winner got 493.5 marks out of 600 or 82.25 per cent, and the third rank winner got 486.75 marks or 81 per cent in the veterinary doctors entrance exam.The third-rank winner, whose selection was facilitated by the KPSC chairman himself, attempted 95 questions in her general paper and got 89 correct and six wrong, while she attempted 91 questions and got 83 right and eight wrong in the veterinary science paper, the investigations in the KPSC veterinarians selection fraud case have revealed.Story continues below this adThe ED has corroborated its findings regarding the roles of Sahukar and Geetha in the fraud with statements from the first and third rank candidates, their fathers, and Gangwar.The ED probe has found that four other candidates – the eighth, ninth, 11th and 12th rank winners — apart from the first rank winner and the third rank winner in the entrance exam held on January 9 were given access to answer keys by the Sahukar-Geetha combination.Incidentally, Gangwar and a BJP-linked middleman, Basavaraj Kannale, were arrested in August by the CID unit of the Karnataka Police and later in September by the ED for allegedly leaking 60 to 80 questions and their answers to 11 aspirants.The 11 candidates who paid through the middleman for the questions were housed in villas at a resort outside Bengaluru on the eve of the exam, the investigations have found. The 11 candidates were coached at the villas on answering the questions and were transported to the exam hall on January 9, 2026, by the middleman and his associates.Story continues below this adA total of 329 were selected, with 56 in the backlog category and 273 in the main category for 400 vacancies. A total of 10 candidates confessed to the CID unit of the Karnataka Police to receiving the questions and answers for the exam in advance on January 8 at the villas outside Bengaluru through a middleman.The Karnataka CID probe in the case had revealed that candidates who obtained the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 10th and 13th ranks in the main category paid bribes to the middleman to obtain the question papers, while the three top rankers in a backlog category also paid bribes.KPSC chairman Shivashankarappa Sahukar was suspended on August 25 by Karnataka Governor Thawaarchand Gehlot in connection with a separate KPSC fraud of recruitment of his daughter to the post of an industrial officer with fake income documents.