Jaipur, Feb 18 (IANS): The Rajasthan High Court on Tuesday heard the Sub-Inspector (SI) recruitment case on Tuesday.
During the court proceedings, Justice Sameer Jain questioned the state government, asking, "When officials of the selection agency leaked the examination paper 35 days in advance, does the government not believe that the integrity of the entire recruitment process has been compromised?"
In response, Additional Advocate General Vigyan Shah, representing the state government, said that "a mere violation of sanctity cannot be the sole ground for cancelling the entire recruitment process".
The government maintained its stance, emphasising, "We aim to take strict action against the culprits. If the recruitment is cancelled at this stage, even those who honestly appeared for the exam will be unfairly treated as offenders. Our priority is to act against the guilty first."
"Legally, recruitment can only be cancelled when it is impossible to distinguish between those who leaked the paper and those who appeared for the exam fairly. We have not yet reached that point."
The High Court acknowledged that the case is still under deliberation, with further arguments from the government scheduled for Wednesday.
The case involves multiple parties, including the petitioners, the government, and trainee SIs.
The petitioners argue that the entire recruitment should be annulled, citing recommendations from the Special Operations Group (SOG), Police Headquarters, Advocate General, and the Cabinet Sub-Committee in favour of the cancellation.
On the other hand, trainee Sub-Inspectors contend that they had no role in the paper leak.
They assert that they left other government job opportunities for this position and that cancelling the recruitment would be unfair to them.
The 2021 SI recruitment examination was marred by a paper leak.
SOG's investigation uncovered instances of dummy candidates being used and fraudulent means being employed to secure jobs.
Nearly 50 trainee SIs were arrested, of whom 25 have secured bail from the High Court.