JAMMU: Special Judge Anti-corruption Jammu Tahir Khurshid Raina on Thursday framed corruption charges against the then Chief Education Officer (CEO) Tarsem Lal and 37 others in the much publicized Class IVth appointment scam in the Education Department.
As per the prosecution case, some complaints were received by the Vigilance Organization, Jammu (VOJ) mentioning that the select list of Class IVth employees in Education Department, issued by the CEO, Jammu, was not fair and many deserving candidates stood deprived of their right of selection/appointment on account of the fraud committed by the concerned authorities in the process of selection.
A surprise check was conducted and it came to the fore that out of 90 selected candidates, 15 had not filled their application forms before the concerned Zonal Education Officers as prescribed in the advertisement issued by the office of CEO, Jammu.
It was also found that in respect of 13 selected candidates, their academic marks were forged to that of their original marks scored by them, leading to enhancement in their points to ensure their placement in the select list.
Further, six illegal selectees were those who were originally given less marks by Interview Committee and even some of them who were absent in the interview, their marks were forged and increased to get them selected and some of those who even did not appear in interview also got finally selected.
So, in toto, around 34 candidates out of 90 got illegally and fraudulently selected by the concerned authorities and the selectees stand described in the charge sheet as back door selectees and the accused-beneficiaries. The joint surprise check also revealed that the selection so made against the 90 Class IVth posts in Education Department was unfair, arbitrary and illegal.
It was also found that accused CEO, Tarsem Lal and other officials of the department who were associated in the selection process, had abused their official position under a pre-conceived conspiracy hatched by them with the beneficiaries, made these illegal and back door selection/appointments by manipulating the record.
“On careful scrutiny, this court found that all the allegations which have been leveled in the charge sheet stand prima facie corroborated by the record. In fact, the level of manipulations alleged to be done by the authorities like huge increase in the marks to that of the original marks actually scored by the beneficiaries, accepting the application forms beyond the cut-off date and that too not submitted in the relevant office-the office of ZEO concerned as was mandated in the Advertisement Notice and mutilations in the marks shown in the viva voce and figuring of names of those candidates who do not figure in the list of ZEO office concerned, prima facie talk of full complicity of all the accused persons in the commission of crime”, Special Judge said.
“There is a prima-facie material on record to presume that offences under Section 5(1)(d) read with 5(2), J&K PC Act 2006 and Sections 420, 468, 471 and, 120-B RPC have been established against the accused persons. Accordingly, they stand charged for the commission of the offences”, the court said.