‘Continue with police recruitment probe’

SHILLONG, SEPT 9: The CBI conducting the preliminary investigating into the alleged manipulation in the recruitment of Meghalaya Police Service Officer under Home (Police) department has been directed the premier investigating agency to continue with its enquiry by the Meghalaya high court after an appeal for stay was rejected.

The appeal for stay filed by the Meghalaya Public Service Commission (MPSC) questioned the June 16-order passed by the single judge directing the CBI to conduct a preliminary enquiry to find out the actual position and submit a report within 3 months.

The order for a CBI probe came after a petition was filed by a candidate Millon Ch, Momin questioning the fairness of process adopted by the MPSC. He alleged that he was not shown in the select list despite securing higher marks than four other Garo candidates.

In the order issued on Thursday, the High Court said, “As regards the prayer made by the appellant in the stay application i.e., MC (WA) No. 75 of 2016, it is considered appropriate and hence ordered that at present, the In-Charge Superintendent of Police, CBI may continue with the preliminary enquiry said to have been taken up and for that matter, he may also take the image of the hard disk of the referred computer as required, but without disturbing the data stored.”

During the hearing, senior counsel S Chakravarty submitted to the CBI that in the process of such an enquiry it has not only recorded some statements but has even gone to the extent of putting a seal on the main computer of the office of the Controller of Examination, which is leading to serious administrative difficulties and is hampering the regular functioning of the Commission.

He also argued that the course adopted by the single judge is neither envisaged by law nor warranted on the facts and in the circumstances of this case.

However, senior counsel VK Jindal appearing for the CBI submitted that taking up the enquiry as ordained, CBI has indeed collected certain documents and has recorded some statements, but for a proper enquiry, examination of the contents of the hard disk of the computer used in the process is necessary; and the officers concerned visited the office of the Commission with computer engineers to obtain necessary data and to transfer the data from hard disk to the external drive but were not permitted to do so by the officers in the Commission and hence, the enquiry could not be finalised.

In view of this, the court in its order directed, “After such collection of the requisite information by the In-Charge Superintendent of Police, CBI, the referred computer can be used by the Commission for other purposes but it would be the responsibility of the Commission to ensure safety and preservation of the data related with the issue involved in this matter.”

It has further directed that after collecting of the data and other information that are required, the CBI shall complete the preliminary enquiry at the earliest and submit its report along with the entire supporting material in a sealed cover in this appeal.

“The report so prepared and the supporting material shall not be made available to any other person without specific orders of this court,” the order stated. The next hearing on the appeal has been fixed on September 28.-By Our Reporter