The High Court of Karnataka has declined to quash the chargesheet filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against a 41-year-old medical practitioner who was allegedly one of the beneficiaries of malpractices in conduct of entrance exam for the postgraduate medical courses by the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS) in 2006.
Justice M. Nagaprasanna passed the order while dismissing the petition filed by Neha Bansal of Uttar Pradesh.
The petitioner was one of the candidates who appeared in the entrance exam in 2006 and secured high marks. Later it was revealed that question papers of the exams were leaked to select candidates, and as a result, they had secured high marks.
Subsequently, the State government handed over the case to the CBI, which filed chargesheet against certain top officials of the varsity and some beneficiaries of the leaked question papers. The CBI had arraigned the petitioner as accused number-8 in the chargesheet.
Brain mapping
The polygraph and brain mapping tests of the petitioner had revealed that she was aware of what was happening in the alleged episode. However, it was contended on her behalf that she cannot be convicted merely on the basis of results of these tests as per the law in the absence of any other concrete evidence.
The court said that there were corroborative material found against her in the chargesheet on the basis of statements made by some of the witnesses about her participation in the alleged crime. The court noted that two witnesses, who had identified her, have stated that she was one among the candidates brought to a hotel on Bengaluru and where the leaked question papers were given to her.
These statements of the witnesses will have to be put to test in a trial, in which it is for the petitioner to come out clean, the court said, while refusing to quash the criminal proceedings against her.
