Delhi High Court Extends Parole To Former Haryana CM Om Prakash Chautala In Teachers' Recruitment Scam Case

The order extending parole has been passed by a Division Bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani on Chautala's plea seeking the benefit of special remission on the ground that by virtue of his age and disability he is entitled to an early release under the Central Government notification which allows the release of prisoners above the age of 60 who have served half of their sentence.

The court also directed the Delhi Government to file an affidavit in response to Chautala's plea for special remission, on Chautala's submission that although he has undergone almost the entire sentence, he has not been allowed any special remission by the Delhi government.

In January, 2013, Chautala, his son, Ajay Chautala, and three other officials, including the whistleblower in the case, were awarded a 10-year sentence by a Special CBI court for illegally recruiting about 3208 junior basic trained (JBT) teachers in the period between 1999-2000, using forged documents. The conviction was upheld by the Supreme Court two years later.

The scam had come to light with the former Director of Primary Education in the state, Sanjeev Kumar, filing a writ petition in the Supreme Court saying that the Chautala government had taken bribes to recruit 3,208 JBT teachers. Kumar had alleged that the then chief minister Chautala had forced him to change the original list of 2,000 selected candidates. Chautala was also handling the Education Ministry of the state at the time