New Delhi, February 1
The CBI today submitted to the Supreme Court the final investigation report into the scam involving the appointments of Haryana’s JBT teachers during the Om Prakash Chautala regime. A division Bench has granted the agency eight weeks’ time to obtain mandatory sanction to prosecute the public servants involved in the case.

It took the CBI more than four years to complete the investigation.

Additional solicitor-general (ASG) Amarinder Sharan said before filing of the chargesheet that mandatory sanction from the competent authority was required.

“The sanction has to come from the Speaker,” Sharan said, giving an indication that Chautala, who is a legislator in the Haryana Assembly, could face the charges. He refrained from directly mentioning his name as the court is yet to examine the report in detail.

A Bench of Justices Ashok Bhan and Dalveer Bhandari allowed the time to the CBI after recording the statement of Sharan that an application has already been moved by the agency to the competent authority to obtain mandatory sanction for prosecution of the public servants involved in the case.

The apex court had ordered the CBI probe against Chautala and former director of primary education (DPE) of Haryana government Sanjiv Kumar among others.

Since Chautala is a legislator, the sanction from the Speaker is required only in his case while in the case of Kumar it has to be obtained from the President of India, the appointing authority for an IAS officer.

“Detailed report of the CBI has been received. As CBI states that it has now applied for sanction for prosecution… eight weeks’ time is granted,” the court in its brief order said.

Kumar’s counsel Jasbir Malik wanted that a copy of the report be supplied to him. He tried to impress upon the Bench that the CBI, during the last hearing, had indicated that no charges had been found against Kumar.

But, neither the ASG nor the Bench said anything about the status of the former DPE today apparently because the court is yet to peruse the report.

The allegations against Chautala in a PIL of 2003 by the Haryana JBT Youth Federation was that there was widespread corruption in the selection of the JBT teachers during the 1999-2000 in which then Chief Minister Chautala was directly involved.

After the PIL, Kumar himself had filed a petition accusing Chautala of forcing him to change the original list of selected candidates for appointment of over 2,000 teachers kept under seal by his predecessor after completion of the selection process.

Chautala, on the other hand in a counter charge, had accused Kumar of himself indulging in “corrupt” practices and insisted that it was he who had changed the original list.

Since the counter-allegations against each others by Kumar and Chautala created confusion, the apex court had handed the case to the CBI, which during over four-year investigation had raided the premises of Chautala and grilled him, his legislator sons and the former DPE on various occasions.