SURINDER MOHAN Vs. STATE OF H.P.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This application under Section 438 of the Code of Criminal Procedure has been moved by the petitioner/accused (hereafter referred to as the 'accused') for grant of anticipatory bail in case FIR No. 1/2004 dated 21.1.2004, under Sections 420, 468, 471 120-B of the Indian Penal Code and Section 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, registered at Police Station, Enforcement North Zone, Dharamshala.

(2.) The case of the prosecution in brief is that during the course of enquiry about functioning of the H.P. State Service Selection Board, Hamirpur (hereafter referred to as the 'Board'), it transpired that the said Board conducted examination for 288 posts of Physical Education Teachers and one post of Hostel Superintendent in Technical Education Department. Screening test was held on 16.9.2001 and successful candidates were put to ground test and on 27.2.2002, 515 candidates were declared successful. In order to conduct the interviews of the successful candidates, two Interview Boards one headed by the accused and the other headed by his co-accused Vidya Nath were constituted. The Boards so constituted recommended 238 candidates for selection. It was also found that in most of the cases the performance of the candidates compiled through the computer did not correspond to the manual checking. It was also noticed that one Rakesh Kumar Chhabra was shown to have secured 13 marks as per the merit list whereas as per the interview broad sheet he was awarded only 7 marks. Similarly, one Uttam Singh Dod who on manual checking had originally obtained 138 marks in the written examination was wrongly awarded 132 marks finally, whereby he was out of selection. One Sudhir Chand was also fond to have been wrongly recommended for selection and one Vir Singh was wrongly awarded 7 marks more than the actual 103 marks having been obtained by him in the written test and thus was finally recommended for selection. On the basis of these findings of the inquiry, aforesaid FIR had been registered against the accused and his co-accused Vidya Nath an ex-member of the Board and others.

(3.) The investigation in the case is that the initial stage and so far it has been found that false record/merit list has been prepared to give benefit to a few candidates and thereby selection of those who had qualified for selection on merits had been denied.