Former High Court Registrar sentenced to 5-yr jail

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 22

A Delhi court today sentenced the then Registrar (Recruitment) of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, Balwinder Kumar Sharma, and his associate, Sunita, to five-year rigorous imprisonment in the 2017 Haryana Civil Service (Judicial Branch) Preliminary Examination paper leak case. Sunita had topped the exam in the general category.

The court imposed a fine of Rs 1.5 lakh on Balwinder while Sunita was fined Rs 60,000. Both have been taken into custody.

Another candidate, Sushila, who topped the exam in the reserved category, was also held guilty of receiving the paper. She was sentenced to imprisonment, which she had already undergone (nine months) during the trial, and fined Rs 10,000. The remaining six accused were acquitted.

The preliminary exam for 109 posts of HCS (Judicial Branch) was held on July 16, 2017.

In August 2017, a candidate, Suman, filed a petition before the high court alleging that the paper was leaked. She produced audio recordings with Sushila, a resident of Panchkula, and Sunita, a resident of Delhi, in which they offered to sell the paper for Rs 1.5 crore. After negotiations, the deal was settled for Rs 10 lakh. The meeting between the three had taken place on July 15, 2017, a day before the exam, at Sindhi Sweets, Sector 17, Chandigarh.

The then Registrar (Vigilance) of the high court, Arun Kumar Tyagi, vide his inquiry report, dated August 29, 2017, had confirmed that Balwinder had the question papers from the time these were set till the examination was conducted. It was also found that Sunita and Sushila had a copy of the paper before the exam.

He also found that Sunita, who was known to Balwinder, got the paper and supplied it to Sushila. Sushila was known to Suman. On September 10, 2017, the high court had ordered the scrapping of the paper. On September 15, 2017, a full Bench of the high court had directed the registration of an FIR and Balwinder’s suspension.

During the probe by the Chandigarh Police, it came to light that Sunita had topped in the general category despite being an average student. She had earlier never cleared any competitive examination.

The police found that she was in a “close relationship” and “constant touch” with Balwinder. It was submitted that 726 voice calls/SMSes were exchanged between the two and the duration of some of the calls was about 1,800 seconds or more. Later, they had bought “secret” numbers to converse with each other.

The prosecution submitted that at Neelkanth Yatri Niwas, Kurukshetra, entries were found mentioned in the name of Balwinder and in a few entries, two adults were mentioned. His wife, who was a schoolteacher, was present in the school at that time as per the school record.

Further, the tower location of the mobile numbers of both Sunita and Balwinder was found at Yatri Niwas on five occasions as per the record.

“…the prosecution, through the mobile calls and locations, and through the record of Yatri Niwas, has been able to prove the closeness of Sunita and Balwinder and this in itself, is incriminating against the accused,” said Principal District and Sessions Judge, Rouse Avenue Court, Anju Bajaj Chandna, in the judgment.