SHRI. NARAYANASWAMY Vs. THE STATE OF KARNATAKA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Petitioner who has been arraigned as accused No.2 in Cr. No.59/2014 by Lokayuktha Police registered for the offence punishable under Sec. 201, 465, 468, 471 and 420 of Penal Code and for the offences under Sec. 13 (1) (c) (d) and 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act is seeking for being enlarged on bail.

(2.) According to the initial case of the prosecution a private complaint under Sec. 200 Crimial P.C. came to be filed by Sri. H.T. Ravi (hereinafter referred to as 'Complainant') which was registered in PCR No.37/2014 against one Sri. Chandrashekhar Hiremath. It was alleged by the complainant that he is a practicing Advocate at Theerthahalli and practicing on both civil and criminal side and had applied and appeared in the examination conducted by the Dept. of Prosecution and Government Litigation for the post of "Assistant Public Prosecutor/Assistant Government Pleaders" (for short APP/AGP) and had successfully passed in the written examination and viva-voce and he was not selected. Hence, suspecting foul play in the selection process he had applied for certified copy of the answer sheets under the Right to Information Act, 2005, and though information was turned down initially, he had received the information and found that candidates who did not have merit had got selected through malpractice. Hence, a private complaint was lodged before the Special Judge for Prevention of Corruption Cases, Bangalore, which was referred for investigation by the jurisdictional Court to the respondent therein.

(3.) On registering the FIR in Cr.No.59/2014 for the offences referred to herein above, investigation as taken up by respondent and on enquiry with the Officials and several other persons including petitioner, accused No.1 and on recording their statements and obtaining their handwriting and specimen signatures, it was sent to examination by the Forensic Science Laboratory and has been found that there had been large scale of manipulation and malpractice in relation to answer sheets of 2014 examination of APP / AGP. It is alleged by the prosecution that several answer sheets have been tampered by overwriting the marks, higher marks awarded, face sheets have been changed, stapler pins replaced, signatures of the evaluators who were then District Judges were forged, signatures of invigilators are forged apart from other discrepancies and this had been done to benefit the undeserving candidates and by altering their marks for higher marks. It is the further case of the prosecution that original answer scripts have been sent to FSL for examination and the partial report of the FSL received has confirmed that in relation to 10 of the answer sheets belonging to five candidates have been tampered and IO has come to the conclusion regarding role of the petitioner in the commission of the above offences and as such petitioner came to be arrested on 30.02017.