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SC orders CBI probe against Chautala
Controversy over JBT teachers’ appointment
S.S. Negi
Our Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, November 25
The Supreme Court today ordered a CBI probe into the alleged attempt by Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala to substitute “fake” selection lists for appointment of JBT teachers in the state with genuine ones in 19 districts in 2000 and corruption cases registered against the then Director of Primary Education, Mr Sanjiv Kumar, as a sequel to it.

Allowing a petition by Mr Sanjiv Kumar for a CBI probe into the entire controversy, including five cases registered against him, a Bench comprising Mr Justice R.C. Lahoti and Mr Justice Ashok Bhan directed the agency to complete the probe within six months.

“We hope it (probe) will be accomplished, accompanied with reasonable expedition and dispatch, hopefully within six months,” the Bench said, rejecting the proposal of the Haryana Government for a judicial inquiry by a commission headed by a retired High Court judge.

The court said the departmental inquiry against Mr Sanjiv Kumar would remain suspended pending the CBI probe and the agency would register an FIR only if an offence was made out as a result of the investigation.

The departmental inquiry against the IAS officer would only resume on obtaining the permission of the court after the completion of the CBI investigation, the Bench said, asking the Delhi police to continue to provide protection to Mr Sanjiv Kumar as per its earlier order.

In a span of five months, this is the second instance after former UP Chief Minister Mayawati that a CBI inquiry has been ordered against the Chief Minister of a state by the apex court following a writ petition.

While disposing of Mr Sanjiv Kumar’s petition, the court said the parties concerned would be at liberty to seek any direction from it, if the necessity for the same was felt.

The court rejected the plea of the Haryana Government for a judicial inquiry on the grounds of inordinate delay caused in probing a case by an inquiry commission and its report not being binding on the government.

“It is the discretion of the government not to take any action on its (commission’s) report. Experience is that the follow-up action on its report will be on the political will rather than in the public good,” the court observed.

The court, in its order, also recorded that Mr Sanjiv Kumar had on November 3 submitted an audio cassette, which he claimed to have recorded when ‘tantrik’ Chandraswami had allegedly called him up and threatened him at the behest of Mr Chautala to withdraw the petition. The Bench said it had ordered to keep the cassette in the “safe custody” of the Court Registry.

Recording in order the entire sequence of events, the court said according to Mr Sanjiv Kumar, he was “pressurised” by Mr Chautala to “substitute” the “second” set of selection lists for appointment of JBT teachers in 19 districts with the “original” ones, kept under seal by his predecessor Rajni Shekri Sibal, in September, 2000.

The second set of lists was handed over to Mr Sanjiv Kumar on September 28, 2000, after the Chief Minister got it prepared by getting the signatures of District Selection Committee members on it in August/September, 2000, after he had held meetings with them at a house in Panchkula and at Haryana Bhavan in Delhi, the court said.

Mr Sanjiv Kumar had claimed that he refused to oblige Mr Chautala and got the original list released on November 7, 2000, facilitating the appointment of 3,206 candidates as primary school teachers, the court said, adding that the former Director was transferred on December 3, 2000, from the post for not obeying the CM. He had further claimed that “false’ cases of corruption were registered against him as sequel to this.

The process for appointment of JBT teachers was set in motion by the state government in November, 1999, by inviting applications for the appointment of 4,000 primary school teachers, the court recorded in its order.