SI paper leak: HC grants bail to 10 accused, denies to 9 others

Jaipur: Rajasthan High Court on Friday granted bail to ten trainee police sub-inspectors arrested in connection with the paper leak case related to the SI Recruitment Exam 2021. All these accused were arrested by Special Operation Group (SOG) of the state police between Mar and Apr this year for alleged involvement in the paper leak.Nine other accused who were allegedly involved in incidents of appearance as dummy candidates in the exam were denied bail by the HC. A single judge bench of Justice Ganesh Ram Meena passed these orders after hearing 19 bail applications filed in the case.While pleading for bail in the HC, senior counsel Madhav Mitra, appearing for petitioners Ekta and Rajshree, said, "The material dug out against the petitioners during the investigation has no credibility. The investigation agency merely recovered from the residence of an accused a single piece of paper, on which a single line of text is found, mentioning that a certain amount is owed to the alleged kingpin or member of the alleged main group of accused persons. So this cannot be considered a piece of evidence.""Besides, the timeline of the exam makes it impossible for the prosecution's allegations to stand. Just reading the answers of the leaked question paper on the narrow screen of a mobile phone in such a short span of time before the exam cannot help anyone memorise them," Mitra contended.Kinshuk Jain, counsel for Rohitash Kumar, another petitioner, said, "It is alleged that the petitioner received the leaked question paper about 90 minutes prior to the exam. How can a person, even after getting leaked questions and answers, memorise the entire question paper and answers? These baseless stories are cooked up by the prosecution."Special public prosecutor Anurag Sharma opposed all the bails, claiming that there is enough evidence with the prosecution on the allegations against the petitioners.After hearing both sides, the HC granted bail to ten accused: Karanpal Godara, Ekta, Manohar Lal, Surendra Kumar, Rohitash Kumar, Premsukhi, Abhishek Vishnoi, Rajeshwari, Neeraj Kumar and Praveen Kumar. They have been asked to furnish a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh each with two surety bonds of Rs 50,000 each.Bail was denied to the nine other accused, who allegedly appeared as dummy candidates.