Among the thousands of civil services aspirants are three inmates of Tihar Prisons, including a murder convict and an IITian, who appeared in the examination this time.
Siddharth Singh Sidar from Chhattisgarh, who is undergoing imprisonment for cheating and once trained IAS aspirants, 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 here last Sunday.
Sidar, an IITian from Kharagpur, and Jha both came to Delhi to prepare for civil services before they were jailed. All three are lodged inside Jail No. 3 of the Tihar Prison.
"Three inmates of my jail have appeared for the civil services preliminary examinations on June 12. Two are undertrials and one is a convict. It is for the first time in the history of Tihar Prisons that three inmates are competing for the examination.
If they qualify they will get a call for the Mains," M K Diwedi, jail superintendent, Jail No. 3 said. "We are hopeful that atleast two of them will make it to the Mains," he 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 toiling it day and night to qualify for the Indian Administrative Services exams eventhough they are not certain about their release," Sunil Gupta, spokesperson, Tihar Prisons said.
"Unfortunately 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," Gupta said.
With no coaching centres at their disposal, they were relying on self study and turned to 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 in kidnapping charges.