Savvy Thakur
Published on: November 2, 2022 at 19:18 IST
The Madras High Court recently reopened the Cash-For-Job Scam, a case involving irregularities in the State Transport Corporation’s appointment.
Justice V. Sivagnanam made the observation that the investigating agency’s investigation was flawed because it did not include certain essential elements.
“After going over all of the documents that are in front of me, I have come to the conclusion that these cases, namely C.C. No. 19 of 2020 and C.C. No. 24 of 2021, are appropriate candidates for direct reinvestigation or de-novo investigation in order to gather new information and evidence in order to discover the truth.”
In addition, the court denied the Electricity Minister Senthil Balaji’s discharge petitions, stating that the case has a social impact.
The court also noted that there was evidence against the Minister and that the lower court’s charge was not flawed.
The court noted that, despite the fact that the Prevention of Corruption Act offense was not charged in two of the cases, the nature of the offense was such that the matter could not be quashed, even though the parties had reached a settlement.
Although the nature of the alleged crime in the complaint is a Cash-For-Job Scam, it is not a suitable case for dismissal despite the fact that the complainants, the victims, and the offenders have settled the dispute.
“It is certain that violations of the Prevention of Corruption Act committed by public servants were not included. The crimes are not of a private nature and have a significant impact on society.”
“As a result, I find no basis for quashing the criminal case and no merit in the argument made by the learned counsel for the petitioners.”
As a result, the court ordered the authorities to conduct an ab initio investigation that would cover all aspects, including whether or not the Prevention of Corruption Act offense had been proven.
In addition, the predicate offense’s investigation agency was required to provide the documents to the Enforcement Directorate in order to invoke jurisdiction and carry out an investigation in accordance with the Prevention of Money Laundering Act in the event that substantial materials were discovered.
Background
In the years 2014 and 2015, all of the Transport Corporations in the State of Tamil Nadu recruited for the positions of Reserve Crew Drivers, Crew Conductors, Junior Trades Men (JTM), Junior Assistant (JA), Junior Engineer (JE), and Assistant Engineer (AE).
Several Transport Department employees collaborated on these appointments, including Electricity Minister Senthil Balaji, who was Transport Minister at the time.
Malpractices and irregularities were committed in the process of recruitment for the official position. They had committed dishonesty against naive job seekers by asking for money in exchange for employment.
The court said that the investigation had suffered a lot because the forensic document analysis report on the registers used to enter interview marks was missing. This misery was made worse by a number of petitions from various parties.
The court also noted that the investigation was incomplete and that the Final Report did not include all of the necessary information.
The accused had been charged in only one of the three FIRs, as required by the Prevention of Corruption Act of 1988. As a result, the court noted the investigation agency’s extraordinary dilatoriness.
“Reviewing the final reports reveals that the investigating agency acted with extraordinary dilatoriness by failing to include violations of the Prevention of Corruption Act in C.C. No. 19 of 2020 and C.C. No. 25 of 2021, where a complaint against the accused is essentially receiving money for providing employment.”
In this case, the involved investigating agency acted carelessly.