Bombay High Court discharges nine police officers in jail sepoy selection case

Mumbai: The Bombay High Court has discharged nine police officers from allegations of corruption in a selection process for jail sepoys. Justice Sandeep Marne ruled in favour of the officers, who had faced charges related to manipulating scores of selected candidates at the behest of senior officials.
The discharged officers, ranging from clerks to superintendents of various prisons in western Maharashtra, were implicated in a case dating back to 2006. The state Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) had filed a First Information Report against Dhanaji Choudhari, then Deputy Inspector General of Prison (Western Region), Pune; Nirmala Jadhav, his personal secretary; and Chand Dadasaheb Mulla, the establishment clerk.
The ACB alleged that the trio had hatched a criminal conspiracy, resulting in forgery, falsification of records and large-scale corruption during the selection process for 67 jail sepoy posts. The nine officers were later named as accused in the ACB’s chargesheet.
According to the ACB, the officers manipulated scores of certain candidates on Choudhari’s instructions. The selection process, which comprised a physical exam (100 marks), a written exam (80 marks) and an interview (20 marks), was allegedly rigged. The ACB claimed that some candidates received additional marks in the physical exam components, while answers in the written exam were altered to grant extra marks to specific candidates.
The ACB also alleged that erroneous merit lists were prepared, deliberately deleting names of 19 candidates and replacing them with 19 non-selected candidates. This entire exercise was purportedly carried out at Choudhari’s behest.
The nine officers had previously applied for discharge from prosecution, which was rejected by a Pune court in August 2014. However, the high court observed that the ACB had not alleged that these officers had any intention of committing illegality by selecting particular candidates of their own choice. “The choice is of the First Accused (Choudhari),” the court noted after examining the case records.
Furthermore, the court highlighted that there were no allegations of the nine officers obtaining any pecuniary advantage. It also observed that the ACB lacked sufficient material to prove the allegations against the officers.
The high court concluded that the special judge trying the case had failed to consider these aspects, rendering the earlier order perverse. Consequently, the nine officers were discharged from prosecution.