JBT scam: HC asks Tihar to take convict to IHBAS for test

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The Delhi high court today asked Tihar jail authority to take Vidya Dhar, sentenced to ten year jail-term along with former Haryana chief minister Om Prakash Chautala in teacher recruitment scam, to the Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital here on his plea for interim bail on medical grounds.

Justice Siddharth Mridul asked the Tihar jail authority “to produce him (Dhar) before the medical authority of Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences (IHBAS) tomorrow.”

The court also directed the director of IHBAS to file a report after examining Dhar’s mental conditions by July 2 and posted the matter for July 3.

The court order came on the plea of Dhar, an IAS officer and former officer on special duty to Chautala, seeking interim bail plea on the ground that he has been suffering from Dysthyamia (neurotic depression) and his physical and mental health conditions have deteriorated in jail.

Dhar’s counsel argued his client is suffering from hypertension along with other ailments. He said Dhar is also a chronic diabetic and the medical condition of appellant (Dhar) is not well.

Opposing the bail plea, the CBI counsel told the court that if the convict is suffering from any mental disorder appropriate treatment can be given to him by the jail authority and he should not be granted bail.

On January 22, the trial court had convicted and sentenced Chautala and nine others, including his son Ajay Chautala, to ten years jail term for illegally recruiting 3,206 Junior Basic Trained (JBT) teachers in 2000.

Apart from the Chautalas, IAS officers Dhar and Sanjiv Kumar, the then director of primary education, were held guilty in the case. Out of total 55 convicts, 44 have been sentenced to four years in jail and one was sentenced to five-year jail term in the case.

All of them were held guilty of cheating, forgery, using fake documents as genuine, conspiracy under the IPC and for abusing their official position under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

Indian National Lok Dal (NINLD) chief O.P. Chautala and some other convicts have been granted bail on medical grounds by the high court recently.