Ahmedabad: A special CBI court here on Monday sentenced eight former Western Railway employees to five years’ imprisonment and imposed a Rs 5 lakh fine on each of them after finding them guilty of leaking the paper of an exam conducted by the railways in 2002. The court said that this case is a “glaring example of betrayal of public trust”. Those punished are former head clerks Sunil Golani and Prakash Karamchandani, senior cipher operator Mahendra Vyas, signal maintainers Rajesh Goswami and Anand Meraiya, assistant diesel drivers Mehboobali Ansari and Paresh Patel and railway protection force personnel Pappu Khan. The CBI filed a case against them based on a complaint made by the chief vigilance inspector on Aug 17, 2002. They were charged with criminal conspiracy, theft, causing the disappearance of evidence and dishonestly receiving or retaining stolen property after they leaked and sold question papers for the exam to be held on Aug 18, 2002, for the post of probationary assistant station master. The exam was cancelled. After the trial, special judge D G Rana stated, “This not only caused substantial financial and administrative loss to the govt exchequer but also inflicted deep disappointment and irreparable emotional and intellectual damage to thousands of honest and hardworking aspirants who invested their precious time, effort and resources to prepare for the examination in good faith.” The court further stated, “This case is a glaring example of betrayal of public trust by those who were expected to protect the sanctity of the recruitment process. The convicts abused their official positions for personal monetary gain, thereby undermining the integrity of Indian Railways and also the govt of India. The offence strikes at the core of public confidence in fair governance and erodes the moral fabric of law-abiding democratic society of India.” The court quoted from the Sanskrit text Prayashchitta Mayukha and verses of Gujarati poet Kalapi and said, “Considering the gravity of the offence, the extent of public loss and the breach of fiduciary duty by the convicts, a deterrent yet reformative sentence is warranted. This court, therefore, imposes the sentence not merely to penalise, but to create conditions conducive to inner transformation, so that the convicts may one day return to society as morally awakened individuals, capable of contributing positively to the nation they wronged.”
