HCS exam paper leak: Supreme Court notice to HC, Haryana govt, police

Supreme Court (File)

The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to the Punjab and Haryana High Court, the Haryana government and the state police in a case related to leakage of question papers of the Haryana Civil Services (Judicial) Preliminary Exam, 2017. A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud issued the notice after transferring the case from the Punjab and Haryana HC to itself last month.

The case dates back to August when a Panchkula candidate Suman, through her counsel Manjeet Singh, had approached the High Court through a civil writ petition alleging that the preliminary examination conducted for 109 posts of the Haryana subordinate judiciary was leaked a day before test. A letter was also written to the High Court Chief Justice and Haryana Police on the paper leakage.

She had said two fellow candidates – Sunita and Sushila – had offered her the paper at Rs 1 crore and even disclosed to her the two questions of the paper for which examination was held on July 16. Sunita and Sushila were later found to be the toppers of the examination with “exceptionally high marks” and “minimum errors” in the paper.

The High Court, after the preliminary probe last month, had rejected an appeal for a CBI probe into the case and handed it over to an SIT and ordered scrapping of the examination. The accused registrar (recruitment), Dr Balwinder Kumar Sharma, was suspended on September 27, following the preliminary probe in which he was implicated as the main accused along with two candidates to whom the paper was leaked.

HC’s preliminary inquiry had found Sharma in the past one year he had exchanged 760 calls and messages with Sunita who he had allegedly provided a copy of the paper before the examination. According to the inquiry report available with The Indian Express, Sharma in his statement to the Registrar Vigilance, who initially investigated the case, had said that, “he is being made scapegoat to save someone” but “he could not explain by who he is being made scapegoat and to save whom.”

The case was initially heard by HC single bench of Justice Kuldip Singh but on orders of the then High Court Acting Chief Justice (now retired) S S Saron on August 29, it was transferred to the full bench of Justice Rajesh Bindal, Justice Rajan Gupta and Justice G S Sandhawalia. The case was also being monitored by the High Court Committee on Subordinate Judicial Services.

The full bench in the last hearing on September 19 had give three weeks to the Chandigarh Police SIT for submission of a status report on the probe in sealed cover before the court.

Last month, the Supreme Court had declined to hear the transfer petition of the case when whistleblower Suman had approached the apex court after the case was transferred to the HC full bench. The petition was later withdrawn by Suman after an oral observation that the petitioner should avail her remedy from the HC first.