Ex-IAS officer freed after finishing jail term in Haryana teachers recruitment scam

Former IAS officer Sanjeev Kumar, who blew the whistle on the Haryana Junior Basic Trained (JBT) teachers recruitment scam and was convicted along with former Haryana chief minister Om Prakash Chautala, has been released from Tihar jail, prison officers aware of the development said on Monday

Former IAS officer Sanjeev Kumar, who blew the whistle on the Haryana Junior Basic Trained (JBT) teachers recruitment scam and was convicted along with former Haryana chief minister Om Prakash Chautala, has been released from Tihar jail, prison officers aware of the development said on Monday. Chautala was also released a few days ago.

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Kumar was released after he completed 10 years of his sentence awarded to him and 53 others by a special CBI court in January 2013. Prison officers, privy to Sanjeev Kumar’s release, said, “He is the second person to the released in the case. He completed his 10-year sentence. He was lodged in jail number 1. Inside the jail, he was working in the legal section, helping prisoners with their cases. He was released on June 28.”

Kumar, a 1989 batch IAS officer, was the former director of primary education in Haryana, when he filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court alleging that Chautala, the then chief minister, resorted to corrupt practices in the hiring of 3.208 JBT teachers. He had accused the senior politician of forcing him to change the names of over 2,000 teachers during the recruitment.

When contacted, Kumar said he was wrongly incarcerated: “Had I not spoken about the scam, nobody would have come to know about it. As a responsible citizen and officer, I raised the alarm. Yet I was sent behind bars for 10 years. Rightly or wrongly, I have done my time. Now I will work towards raising awareness about the Whistleblower Protection Act. Also, I would like to move the higher courts to put in place systems to ensure that other prospective whistleblowers are not discouraged by the vagaries and distortions of the system.”

Chautala was out on parole on medical grounds since March 2020 and was admitted to a hospital in Gurugram when prison officials wrote to him on June 22, informing that his sentencing was over. On Friday morning, he reached the jail complex and completed the release formalities after which he was formally freed.

Another prison officer, who asked not to be named, said that Chautala’s son, Ajay Chautala, could also be released in a few months. Ajay could not meet the remission criteria - the benefit that Chautala got as he had less than six months of his sentence left. Last month, the Delhi government has issued an order granting remission to prisoners who have less than six months of their sentence left.

Like Chautala, at least 20 other convicts, who qualified for remission, have been released.