The Supreme Court on Friday decided to examine an appeal challenging a decision of the Madras High Court quashing criminal proceedings against several people in a job scam allegedly involving Tamil Nadu Electricity Minister V. Senthilbalaji.
A Bench led by the Chief Justice of India issued notice on the petition filed by a Mechanical Engineering graduate, P. Dharamaraj, a member of the backward classes represented by senior advocate K.V. Vishwanathan and advocate Balaji Srinivasan.
The petition said the accused "carried out an elaborate fraudulent scheme whereby meritorious candidates were excluded from the selection list and their qualifying scores tampered with in favour of less meritorious candidates who had bribed the accused".
"Moreover, as communal reservation was not applied to the selection process, meritorious candidates from the backward classes, such as the petitioner, who would have otherwise qualified on account of merit and reservation, were derived of employment opportunity," the petition said.
The petition said the High Court had quashed the criminal proceedings in July last year "just because the accused have paid off the original complainants..."
Referring to apex court rulings, the petition noted that "courts ought not to quash proceedings in respect of serious offences which involve a crime against society such as those under the Prevention of Corruption Act".
"The scale of the perpetrated scam is a large one," the petition contended.
