IAS officers from Tihar?

IITian and murder convict among those who sat for prelims

Among the thousands of civil services aspirants are three inmates of Tihar Jail, including a murder convict and an IITian, who appeared for the examination this time. Siddharth Singh Sidar from Chhattisgarh, who is serving sentence for cheating, one trained IAS aspirant, Amit Jha from Bihar who was held for kidnapping and Sandeep from Uttar Pradesh, serving life imprisonment in a murder case, undertook the civil services preliminary examinations held inside Tihar premises on June 12.



Sidar -- a passout of IIT Kharagpur -- and Jha both came to Delhi to prepare for the civil services before they were jailed. All three are lodged inside Jail No. 3 of the Tihar Jail. "Three inmates from my jail have appeared for the civil services preliminary examinations last Sunday. Two are undertrials and one is a convict. This is for the first time in the history of Tihar Jail that three inmates have sat for the examination," MK Diwedi, jail superintendent, Jail No. 3.

"If they qualify they will get a call for the mains. And we hope that at least two of them will make it," Diwedi said. The results are expected to be out in about 45 days. In 2009, a convict in a rape case had appeared for the civil services examination for the first time and was set free by the court after he qualified.

"Six inmates lodged inside Jail No. 3 were studying day and night to qualify for the Indian Administrative Services exams even though they are not certain about their release. But only three of them could make it to the examination hall. Of the remaining three, one was released two months back, the other was not permitted by the court and the third one had not prepared enough," said Sunil Gupta, spokesperson, Tihar Jail.

With no coaching centres at their disposal, they studied on their own and occasionally took help from Sidar, who once trained IAS aspirants. Sidar quit his job and came to Delhi to prepare for the IAS exams. He used to run tutorial classes in Mukherjee Nagar area for IIT aspirants before he got entangled in a cheating case. Jha too came to Delhi to prepare for the civil services examination. However, he unfortunately was held on kidnapping charges.