Recruitment scam; High Court reserves verdict on appeals of Om Prakash Chautala

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court today reserved its verdict on appeals of 55 convicts, including former Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala and his MLA-son Ajay Chautala in the Junior Basic Teachers recruitment scam case.

"The judgement is reserved," Justice Siddharth Mridul said after various lawyers including senior advocate Arvind Nigam, appearing for convict and suspended IAS officer Sanjeev Kumar, concluded his rebuttal arguments in the case.

Chautala, his son and eight others, including Vidya Dhar and Badshami, had been awarded 10 years jail term for illegally recruiting 3,206 junior teachers in the year 2000.

Among other convicts, 44 have been sentenced to four years in jail and one to five-year jail term.

While reserving the judgement, the court asked the Tihar jail authorities to provide it information about the time spent by convicts inside the jail during the trial and after their conviction in the case by the lower court in January last year.

Earlier, advocate Amit Kumar, appearing for four convicted former District Primary Education Officers (DPEOs), had concluded his arguments in the case saying no criminality can be attributed to them as they were simply obeying the orders of their superiors.

The court, meanwhile, today extended the interim bail of the former Chief Minister till July 25 in the case.

Earlier, the court had granted extension of interim bail to seven other convicts including Ajay Chautala, Sher Singh Badshami and suspended IAS officer Vidya Dhar till July 25.

On January 22, 2013, a special CBI court had convicted and awarded varying jail terms to the 55 convicts.

All of them were held guilty of cheating, forgery, using fake documents as genuine, conspiracy under IPC and for abusing their official position under Prevention of Corruption Act.