The State Public Prosecutor on Thursday told the High Court of Karnataka that the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) completely agrees with the remarks made by the court that the Police Sub-Inspector (PSI) recruitment scam is nothing but “an act of terror on society and an instance of fence eating the crop.”
With iron hand
“The court has to deal with the accused persons in this case with an iron hand as this is a crime involving police officers, who were entrusted with the responsibility of protecting the law, indulging in most heinous crime, and the aspirants to the disciplined posts of PSIs...,” SPP V.S. Hegde told the court during the hearing on the petitions seeking bail filed by some of the accused persons in the scam.
Justice H.P. Sandesh, who is hearing the petition, during earlier hearings on the petitions, had observed that “the act of indulging in selecting the persons by malpractice and who have committed fraud in the process of PSI recruitment and manipulation of the documents amounts to an act of terror to the society...” as it impacted around 50,000 aspirants.
Responding to the court’s earlier observations that the aspirants to the posts of PSI, who made genuine efforts to succeed in the examination, are real ‘victims’, and both the court and the government need to protect these ‘victims’, Mr. Hegde said the court’s observations has touched the sensitivity of State’s authorities, who are taking steps to prevent such recruitment scams in future.
Interlinked network
The SPP also told the court that it is not a single incident but a scam having interlinks with a huge network of people, involving the candidates, the police officers, and the middlemen. The CID is also tracking the money trail in the scam and has so far seized ₹2.5 crore, the SPP said.
Stating that the investigation is being supervised directly by the Director General of Police (CID and Economic Offences), Mr. Hegde said forensic reports clearly indicates that OMR sheets of some candidates were tampered with in Bengaluru and certain candidates in some examination centres in Kalaburagi got answers while illegally using sophisticated Bluetooth devices.
Warning
Meanwhile, the court took serious view of the conduct of certain individuals, who joined to watch the court proceedings through video conference facility by wearing banians, lying down on cots, etc. Such nuisance cannot be tolerated, the court warned them.
When a candidate sought to air his grievances, Justice Sandesh told him that court cannot entertain around 50,000 candidates like him while making it clear that only those who file application as per court’s procedure can make submissions before the court.
BOX
‘Officers have deleted data in their phones’
The CID on Thursday told the High Court of Karnataka that Amrit Paul, Additional Director General of Police, and other police officers arrested in the scam have deleted data in their mobile phones by formatting the devices.
State Public Prosecutor said that no information is available in their phones and the CID has a huge task of retrieving deleted data.
Mobile phone data, including call details, SMSs, Whatsapp and other messaging app of all the accused persons are key for establishing nexus as mobile is the key device used by the accused to hatch conspiracy to commit the crime, the SPP said.
