The Central Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday registered a First Information Report against 17 people, including 10 employees of Sify Technologies, in connection with the question paper leak of a graduate-level exam conducted by the Staff Selection Commission, PTI reported. Seven students are among those booked in the case.

The CBI conducted searches at Sify Technologies’s offices in Chennai, Noida, Mumbai and Delhi, and eight other locations. The agency also searched the house of Sant Prasad Gupta, an employee of the company, in Delhi’s Sheikh Sarai area. Gupta was the custodian of the question bank at Sify while the other nine employees were site managers at examination centres where the leaked paper had reached.

“Enquiry further revealed that Sant Prasad Gupta being head of content team of Sify got the question papers of the examination and he was the custodian of the question papers,” the FIR alleged. This shows his involvement in the question paper leak, it said.

During the investigation, the CBI found that Sify was entrusted with various duties to conduct the examination, including identification and preparation of test centres across the country, preparation of question paper sets, sanitising each computer and laboratory used in the examination.

The Staff Selection Commission is a government organisation that conducts exams to recruit staff for various ministries and Central government departments. In February, candidates alleged that the Combined Graduate Level Exam 2017 Tier II papers had been leaked on social media.

On May 6, a state government official was arrested on suspicion that he was the mastermind of a syndicate that helped students cheat in the examinations.