Mumbai court hands 3-year jail to ex-Navy officer, coaching centre owner in 2010 paper leak case

Mumbai, Sep 16 (PTI) A special CBI court in Mumbai on Tuesday convicted two persons, including an ex-Indian Navy officer, for leaking examination papers for recruitment of lower division clerks (LDCs) in the Navy in and sentenced them to three years in jail, noting serious nature of the offence.

The court ruled that the offence in the 2010 case was of a "serious nature" and had a far reaching impact as the process of recruitment was compromised. Hence, such offences "have to be dealt with a high hand".

However, the four other accused in the case were acquitted by special CBI judge A V Kharkar.

The two individuals found guilty were Rambir Rawat, who ran a coaching centre, and Ramesh Saini, a former naval officer. They were held guilty for criminal conspiracy, cheating, forgery, and using forged documents as genuine.

The court sentenced them to three years of rigorous imprisonment (RI) and directed them to pay a fine of Rs 50,000 each.

Acting on a reliable information about rigging in the LDC examination, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) initiated a probe.

The contention of the CBI, represented by special public prosecutor Sandip Singh, was that the accused had entered into a criminal conspiracy for rigging the exam.

The accused had allegedly leaked the question paper and tutored candidates at a lodge in Mumbai.

A raid by CBI officers on the night of September 25-26, 2010, at a Mumbai lodge resulted in the recovery of incriminating documents, including question papers and cash.

The defence submitted that the case of the prosecution rested entirely on circumstantial evidence.

The prosecution has failed to independently prove the links in the chain and establish a chain of evidence, which conclusively points to the guilt of the accused, they argued.

The court, after hearing both sides and examining documents on record, ruled that the circumstances proved by the prosecution conclusively point out to the guilt of accused Rawat and Saini.

However, the prosecution couldn't prove the case beyond reasonable doubts against the four other accused, the court noted. PTI AVI RSY