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Legal Correspondent
New Delhi, January 20
The Supreme Court today deferred its ruling on the review petitions of former Haryana Chief Minister OP Chautala and his son Ajay Singh, pleading for relief in the 10-year jail term awarded to them for their role in the teachers’ recruitment scam.
Their review petitions had been listed for consideration of Justices FMI Kalifulla and SK Singh within the judges’ chamber at 1.40 pm. But their senior counsel Ram Jethmalani appeared in the open court in the morning and pleaded for adjournment as he wanted to file revised petitions. In view of this, the SC did not take up the review petitions for a ruling.
The INLD leaders have filed the review petitions following the SC’s refusal to entertain their appeals, thereby upholding their conviction and sentence for committing irregularities in the recruitment of 3,032 junior basic trained (JBT) teachers in 1999-2000.
On January 22, 2013, a trial court here had sentenced 55 accused in the case. Among those convicted were 82-year-old Chautala’s then political adviser Sher Singh Badshami, at present MLA from Kurukshetra; then OSD Vidya Dhar, IAS, and then Primary Education Director Sanjiv Kumar, IAS, besides 50 others.
The CBI had prosecuted 62 politicians and officials in the case, six of whom died during the trial while one person was discharged by the trial court. All 55 convicted persons had gone to the HC challenging the trial court judgment.
The High Court rejected the appeals of all 55, but modified the sentence in some cases.
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