A Haryana government official has told a Delhi court that suspended IAS officer Sanjeev Kumar, who had exposed the JBT scam on appointment of junior teachers in 2000 but was later made an accused, had sought to force his juniors to alter the list of successful candidates.
The JBT scam involved the alleged illegal recruitment of over 3000 junior basic trained (JBT) teachers in Haryana with state’s erstwhile Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala, his MLA-son Ajay Chautala, former CM’s Officer on Special Duty (OSD) Vidya Dhar and 54 others facing trial here in a Delhi court. The trial was shifted here by the Supreme Court.
The accused are facing trial under various offences like forgery, cheating and fabricating fake documents under the Indian penal Code and for misuse of official position under the Prevention of Corruption Act in JBT Scam
The deposition against Kumar that he had been forcing his juniors to alter the list of successful candidates, was made by Shashi Mehta, who was working as district organising commissioner and had been roped in as a defence witness by another accused Rajinder Singh Dahiya .
Mehta told Special CBI Judge Vinod Kumar that Dahiya, who was the then district primary education officer, had confided in him that Kumar was pressurising him to prepare the list to which he did not agree.
“…Dahiya had told me that Director Primary Education (Sanjeev Kumar) had pressurised him to prepare a list to which he did not agree as his conscious did not allow. He also told me that he was pressurised in the meeting at Haryana Bhawan (in Delhi) also and that is why he was upset.
“He also stated that he was told by the director that in case he does not prepare the list, he will not get the pension benefits and his family members will also suffer,” he further said.
In its charge sheet, the CBI had said that the probe established the manner in which the second lists were made by calling the chairpersons and members of the district-level selection committees of 18 districts to Haryana Bhawan here and a guest house in Chandigarh, where the modalities were worked out.
It is not abnormal. In every recruitment/selection to choose the candidates it is going on. However, no action was taken on the errant due to involvment of politics (either political party, departmental politics or money politics). It is high time CVC instead of succumbing to corruption at higher political level, they (CVC ) should render true to its function the service to people of India in general. CVC should also investigate the whistle blower case carefully. The maxim of criminal law should be kept in view by CVC instead of blindly following its own subordinate staff.