Upholding the conviction of the former Haryana Chief Minister O.P. Chautala, his son and 53 others in the junior teachers recruitment scam on Thursday, Justice Siddharth Mridul made observations about the state of the bureaucracy and how wrong methods never produced the right results.
“A cadre comprised of men inducted through patronage, nepotism and corruption cannot, morally, be higher than the methods that produced it and be free from the sins of its own origin. Wrong methods have never produced right results. Nepotism and corruption are gnawing at the vitals of our country,” the judge said.
Mr. Chautala and others had been convicted back in January 2013 for illegally recruiting 3,206 junior basic trained (JBT) teachers in Haryana in 2000.The former Chief Minister and his son had been awarded 10 years, along with the then Director of Primary Education Sanjiv Kumar, the then Officer on Special Duty Vidya Dhar and political adviser to the Chief Minister Sher Singh Badshami. They were sentenced under the Indian Penal Code and the Prevention of Corruption Act for criminal conspiracy, cheating, forgery and using forged documents as genuine. As to the remaining 50 accused, most of whom were retired teachers, the court said that Chautala had played a role in sharing their guilt as well. They were sentenced to rigorous imprisonment under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure, which would run concurrently.
