The controversy revolving around a bogus document submitted before the Madras High Court by Tamil Nadu Uniformed Services Recruitment Board (TNUSRB) took a fresh turn on Monday with the court finding that one of the accused in the case was certified by none other than A.K. Viswanathan, Commissioner of Police, Greater Chennai.
While granting bail to psychologist G. Vijayakumar alias G.V. Kumar, Justice N. Anand Venkatesh said: “In fact, the present Commissioner of Police, who was earlier Superintendent of Police, Special Branch CID, certified that this petitioner is well known to him and has been taking classes for police personnel of intelligence wing since 1995.
“It is beyond comprehension as to why the (Chennai city) police is now turning around and doubting the very qualification of the petitioner. Admittedly, the services of this petitioner have been utilised by the department for a long period of time and it is surprising that it was done without even ascertaining the qualification of the petitioner.”
After taking note of the fact that the petitioner was in jail since his arrest on April 2 and had already been subjected to interrogation in connection with the submission of bogus document in court, the judge agreed with his counsel R. Krishna Kumar that there was no necessity to keep him incarcerated. The issue relates to a writ petition filed by S. Arunachalam, an aspirant to the post of Sub-Inspector of Police, asserting that an answer given by him to particular question was right and yet he was not awarded marks for it. The petition got dismissed after TNUSRB submitted an “expert opinion” from a IIT professor to prove that the answer was wrong.
Fake professor
After the dismissal, the writ petitioner used the Right to Information Act and brought it to the notice of Justice S.M. Subramaniam that the person who gave the opinion, D. Moorthy, was not an IIT professor, as claimed by TNUSRB, but was only a retired mathematics teacher of Kendriya Vidyalaya school on the IIT-M campus. Irked over such conduct, the judge initiated suo motu contempt proceedings against the member secretary of TNUSRB, which claimed that the question paper was set by a team comprising Kumar and it was he who had suggested the name of Moorthy for obtaining the expert opinion. It also lodged a police complaint against them.
However, when the duo told Justice Subramaniam that they were innocent and the TNUSRB officials were trying to make them scapegoats, he directed the Commissioner of Police on April 5 to monitor the investigation and submit a report.
Accordingly, the Commissioner filed a status report on Monday. After perusing the report, the judge granted further time for investigation and adjourned the hearing on the contempt petition to September 6. In the meantime, when the bail petition filed by Kumar came up before Justice Venkatesh, the latter found that the Police Commissioner himself had issued a certificate to the accused a few years ago.
