The Karnataka High Court last month dismissed a petition by IPS officer Amrit Paul, who had challenged the criminal proceedings and chargesheet against him in connection with the alleged police sub-inspector recruitment (PSI) scam, in which he has been named as an accused, stating that there was a “a strong prima facie case to proceed against all the accused persons, including the petitioner”. The order was passed on September 18 by a bench of Justice J M Khazi and was recently made public. The case pertains to an alleged Rs 100 crore PSI recruitment scam that came to light in 2022, in which several senior state government officials were suspected of being involved. More than 54,000 aspirants appeared for an examination held in October 2021 to fill 545 PSI posts. After the results were announced in January 2022, some aspirants alleged irregularities in the selection process. The investigation revealed that 22 candidates had Optical Mark Recognition or OMR result sheets that did not tally with the carbon copy, allegedly due to tampering. Paul, who was the additional director general of police of the recruitment wing of the police department at the time, was accused of conspiring to get these candidates selected. As previously reported by The Indian Express, candidates had allegedly paid between Rs 35 lakh and Rs 60 lakh to be selected. The court recorded that, as per the investigation, Paul—later suspended by the state government—had allegedly handed over a key to a co-accused deputy superintendent of police, which in turn opened an almirah containing the keys for the boxes containing the answer sheets, among other contentions. The accused officer's counsel argued that the allegations as per the chargesheet did not actually show how he (Paul) had conspired with the others. He had also not been the only person having custody of the keys to the said almirah, it was pointed out. It was also argued that more sets of the keys could have been made, as they had once been re-done after one set went missing. Apart from arguments against certain CCTV evidence and witness statements, Paul also argued that the sanction for his prosecution was unsustainable, and that the officers who filed the chargesheet could not have done so, as they were not in charge of a police station. The court, however, did not agree with his arguments, noting regarding the issue of sanction that, “.the question of validity of sanction cannot be raised. Since at the relevant point of time, accused.was under the services of state government, it is empowered to issue sanction and as such the sanction issued under Section 170 of Karnataka Police Act is valid.” After a detailed examination of the contentions of the investigation, the high court stated, “..certainly, this is not a case for quashing the criminal proceedings”.
