SC transfers Haryana judge exam leak case from HC to itself

Haryana Advocate General Baldev Raj Mahajan told The Indian Express: “I have just been informed that the Supreme Court has taken suo motu cognizance of the case and ordered the transfer. I will not be able to comment any further.” The Haryana government is party to the case.

According to the Supreme Court website, the order for the transfer of the case was issued Thursday. Hearing of the case is tentatively listed for November 20.

Article 139A of the Constitution relates to transfer of certain cases: (1) Where cases involving the same or substantially the same questions of law are pending before the Supreme Court and one or more High Courts or before two or more High Courts and the Supreme Court is satisfied on its own motion or an application made by the Attorney General of India or by a party to any such case that such questions are substantial questions of general importance, the Supreme Court may withdraw the case or cases pending before the High Court or the High Courts and dispose of all the cases itself: Provided that the Supreme Court may after determining the said questions of law return any case so withdrawn together with a copy of its judgment on such questions to the High Court from which the case has been withdrawn, and the High Court shall on receipt thereof, proceed to dispose of the case in conformity with such judgment.

After a preliminary probe last month, the High Court, while rejecting an appeal for a CBI probe into the case, had handed it over to an SIT comprising Chandigarh Police cadre officers, and ordered scrapping of the examination. The Registrar (Recruitment), Dr Balwinder Kumar Sharma, was suspended on September 27.

The case dates back to August when Panchkula-based candidate Suman, through her counsel Manjeet Singh, had approached the High Court, alleging that the preliminary examination conducted on July 16 for 109 posts of the Haryana subordinate judiciary had been leaked a day before the examination. A letter had also been written to the High Court Chief Justice and Haryana Police on the alleged paper leak.

Suman had alleged that two fellow candidates offered her the question paper for Rs 1 crore and even disclosed to her two questions in the paper.

The High Court’s preliminary inquiry had found that Balwinder Kumar Sharma, in the past one year, had exchanged 760 calls and messages with one of the candidates, and he had allegedly provided a copy of the paper before the examination.

According to the inquiry report, Sharma, in his statement to the Registrar (Vigilance) who initially investigated the case, said he was “being made scapegoat to save someone” but “he could not explain by who he is being made scapegoat and to save whom”.

The case was initially heard by single-judge bench of Justice Kuldip Singh but on the orders of the then High Court Acting Chief Justice S S Saron (since retired) on August 29, it was transferred to the bench of Justices Rajesh Bindal, Rajan Gupta and G S Sandhawalia. The case was also being monitored by the High Court Committee on Subordinate Judicial Services.

On September 13, senior advocate Kanwaljit Singh, appearing for the High Court, produced in court a copy of the September 12 order by the Supreme Court “in Transfer Petition (Crl.) No. 306/2017 — Suman v. The State of Haryana and others, whereby the petition for transfer of the case, was dismissed as withdrawn”.

At the last hearing on September 19, the bench had given the Chandigarh Police SIT three weeks to submit its probe status report in a sealed cover to the court.