Delhi HC upholds Chautala’s conviction in teacher recruitment scam

New Delhi: Quoting Martin Luther King junior on how morality cannot be legislated and Kautilya’s Arthashastra on the obligations of a ruler, justice Siddharth Mridul of the Delhi high court on Thursday dismissed appeals of 55 people, including former chief minister of Haryana, Om Prakash Chautala and his son Ajay Singh Chautala, against a lower court ruling finding them guilty in relation to illegal recruitment of teachers in Haryana.

add_main_imageJudge Mridul said the main accused, the Chautalas, and eight others, showed “flagrant disregard towards the system” and offended the duty they owed to the high offices they held. The court also held them guilty of compelling other public servants to abandon their duties.

With regard to main accused, the high court upheld the trial court verdict and found them guilty accordingly. The high court refused to show any leniency towards the former Haryana chief minister on grounds of his old age, keeping in view the powerful position he held when this scam took place.NextMAds

The judge, in his ruling, noted that most of the 55 accused, who were part of the district level committees, were public servants and owed a duty to uphold the law and appoint qualified teachers. However, they had succumbed to pressure from their superiors. The court has given different sentences to them, which would amount to a maximum of two years for these officials.

Emphasizing the importance of competent teachers in education, the court observed that such scams lead to a cadre of “compromised men” inducted through patronage, corruption and nepotism, thereby severely compromising the quality of school education.

The Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) leader Chautala, his son and eight others were found guilty by a special CBI court of cheating, conspiracy, forgery and using fake documents as genuine under the Indian Penal Code and for abusing their official position under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

Chautala and the others were sentenced to jail for 10 years on 22 January 2013 by this CBI court for recruiting over 3,000 junior basic trained (JBT) teachers illegally.​

Shreeja Sen and PTI contributed to this story.