Dental Surgeon Exam scam: Haryana Civil Services officer, others granted bail by High Court

It was alleged that Jasbir and his associates had been securing jobs for various applicants by fraudulent means and were earning crores of rupees in return. The complainant alleged that the modus operandi of the gang was simple — they used to ask candidates who came to them for help, to attempt only 30-40 questions and to keep the rest of the question paper blank. The blank portion was subsequently was filled up by Jasbir and and his aides on the OMR sheets.

On Monday, the counsels representing Naggar, Senior Advocate SK Garg Narwana and Vishal Garg Narwana, along with the counsel representing Ashwani, Hargun Sandhu, while moving the bail plea contented before court that the names of their clients had not appeared in the FIR filed in the case and that they had been falsely implicated.

It was further submitted in the bail plea that the bail petitioners had a clean record and since the challan in the case had already been submitted, keeping the accused in jail will not serve any useful purpose.

Additional Advocate General, Deepak Sabbharwal, and Assistant Advocate General, Gurmeet Singh, who represented Haryana, in reply, contented before the court that in the present case sufficient evidence has been collected during the course of investigation so as to establish the complicity of the petitioners. They claimed that an amount of more than Rs 3 crore had been recovered from the accused, with investigators also having audio recording, FSL reports, WhatsApp chats and the opinion regarding hand-writing, which proved that the accused were hand-in-glove with each other for the purpose of committing this fraud.

The counsels for Haryana submitted that one of the accused, Naveen, was caught red-handed at the spot after the complainant handed over an amount of Rs 20 lakh to him. On Naveen’s disclosure, his aide Ashish was named in the case. They further said that the team later arrested Ashwani, who during interrogation named Anil Daggar and defined his involvement in the scam. Ashwani also had told the police that one Pawan Gupta had referred five candidates to them — of which four were selected — after which Gupta too was named in the case.

The counsels for Haryana told the court that while Naveen, Ashwani and Anil Daggar have been behind bars for more than one year, Pawan Gupta had been in jail for the last seven months.

The Bench of Justice Gurvinder Singh Gill, after hearing the arguments, said, “The bail petitioners have been behind bars for a substantial period and otherwise enjoy a clean record. The conclusion of trial, which had not even started, is likely to take time and charges are yet to be framed. Therefore, further detention of the petitioners is not justified.”

The HC, thus, granted bail to the accused.