Tags:
Journalism of Courage
A court here has rejected pleas to make four IAS officers and 1,577 teachers as accused in teachers recruitment scam allegedly involving former Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala and his MLA-son Ajay Chautala.
Special Judge Vinod Kumar rejected the pleas filed by two accused Narain Singh Ruhil and Durga Dutt Pradhan who alleged “undeserving candidates” selected on basis of Directorate List were the “ultimate illegal beneficiary” of the alleged conspiracy and four bureaucrats were actively involved in it.
“Issuing summons to these Junior Basic Trained teachers (1,577) would not only amount to prejudging the entire issue but also may cause lot of harassment to these teachers in case ultimately the Directorate lists are found to be the genuine lists. In these circumstances,I am not inclined to allow this application,” the court said.
The court also dismissed Pradhan’s plea seeking to summon as accused the four IAS officers — Vishnu Bhagwan and Sanjeev Kaushal,who were the then PS and then Additional PS to the Haryana Chief Minister respectively and the then FCEL Haryana Prem Prashant and the then Director Secondary Education P K Mahapatra.
The court noted that out of the four bureaucrats,three of them — Kaushal,Prashant and Mahapatra — were CBI witnesses and said they are protected from prosecution under the Indian Evidence Act.
Accused Ruhil,in his application filed through advocates Ravinder Singh Ruhil and Amit Kumar,had alleged CBI has deliberately not made these 1,577 teachers accused in the case to “protect the real culprits,who are very influential persons”.
