The Madras High Court on Monday was shocked to know that Tamil Nadu Uniformed Services Recruitment Board (TNUSRB) officials had submitted a bogus expert opinion by a non-existing Indian Institute of Technology-Madras professor to win a case filed against it by a police constable.

Justice S.M. Subramaniam took serious note of the issue and directed the Member Secretary, TNUSRB to file a detailed affidavit in the court by Wednesday explaining the circumstances under which such a bogus document had been submitted in the court just to obtain favourable orders.

The issue relates to a writ petition filed by Grade II constable S. Arunachalam, who had applied for the post of Sub Inspector of Police (Finger Print) and sat for the written examination. He filed a writ petition early this year alleging that he was not awarded marks though he had given the right answer to a particular question.

Since TNUSRB claimed that his answer was wrong, the judge insisted on an expert opinion. An opinion provided by one D. Murthi, Professor, Department of Mathematics, IIT-Madras, on March 1, was submitted in the court and the writ petition was dismissed on March 13 .

However, on learning that there was no such professor by name Murthi in the Mathematics Department of IIT-Madras, which was ascertained through an application under the Right to Information Act of 2005, the petitioner’s counsel V.M. Venkatramana urged the court to reopen his client’s case and render justice.

When the judge called for an explanation from TNUSRB, he was told that it had identified some impersonation on the issue of providing expert’s opinion to the recruitment board and that a criminal case had been booked in this regard against two persons, G.V. Kumar and D. Moorthy, who furnished the false document.

Wondering how those two individuals were connected with TNUSRB and why their services were engaged to obtain an expert opinion, the judge directed the Member Secretary of the board to file a detailed affidavit.