The Karnataka High Court on Monday ordered a court-monitored investigation — by constituting a Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by senior IPS officer and Director-General of Police Alok Kumar — into the alleged large-scale irregularities in the recruitment processes conducted by the Karnataka State Public Service Commission (KPSC).
While giving 100 days for the SIT to complete the investigation and submit the final report, the court also directed it to submit an investigation progress report every 30 days.
Yatnal and others’ petition
Justice M. Nagaprasanna passed the order on petitions by Basanagouda R. Patil Yatnal, MLA, All Karnataka State Students’ Association, and Manjunath. The petitioners had sought a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into two cases: on selection of a daughter of the KPSC’s suspended chairperson Shivashankar S. Sahukar to the post of Industrial Extension Officer; and alleged illegalities in the process of selection of candidates to 400 posts of veterinary officers.
The court observed that, in the peculiar facts and circumstances of the cases, it was not appropriate to permit the investigation to continue either with the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) or the jurisdictional police, but it was equally not convinced that entrusting the probe to the CBI was the only available course.
Meanwhile, the court has named IPS officers Divya V. Gopinath, Anoop A. Shetty, Kushal Choksey, and Kshama Mishra as other members of the SIT.
The court also directed the State government to issue a notification declaring this SIT to be a police station for the purposes of investigation.
Independent and impartial
“The SIT shall conduct the investigation independently, impartially and uninfluenced by any observation made in this order on the merits of the allegations,” the court said.
The court also made it clear that the investigation by the SIT shall not be confined by the persons presently named, the allegations presently made or the contours presently perceived. “If the evidence gathered during investigation reveals involvement of any other person, offence, transaction or act, having a nexus with the subject matter of investigation, the SIT shall follow the evidence wherever it leads, strictly in accordance with law,” the court said.
The court gave liberty to the SIT to use the services of forensic, cyber, financial, technical or other specialised assistance for an effective investigation.
The court said that the SIT should extend cooperation to the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which has re has taken up probe under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, and receive information from ED.
KPSC’s troubled history
Tracing the “troubled history” of KPSC recruitments since 1998, the court noted that history reveals allegations recurring with disquieting similarity such as nepotism, favouritism, fraud, corruption, tampering of OMR sheets and even allegations of answers being written for candidates elsewhere, while the examination was under way.
“History, it is said, should teach institutions. It cannot be permitted merely to repeat itself, recruitment after recruitment, at the cost of thousands of aspirants whose only capital is merit and whose only expectation is fairness,” the court observed.
Pointing out that thousands of young men and women spend the most productive years of their lives preparing for these examinations believing that merit will ultimately have its day, the court said that when a post is sold, an OMR sheet is tampered with, marks are manipulated or a selection is engineered, merit is not merely defeated; it is betrayed.”
Such betrayal, the court said, “breeds cynicism among the young and creates the dangerous perception that constitutional avenues themselves are available for purchase. A recruitment scam in a Public Service Commission in particular is not merely a theft of post; it is a theft of equality of opportunity.”
