Twenty-four years after the Supreme Court prodded the CBI to probe a fraud played by a doctor and his lawyer to fabricate a HC order to obtain relief, the same apex court last week terminated the case on finding that the formal complaint by the High Court Registrar, based on which investigation was taken up, was not authorised by the High Court.
The case traced its history to a May 25, 1990 order by Allahabad HC on a petition, which sought stay of PG medical entrance test across Uttar Pradesh. Acting on the order, the State stayed the examination and took admissions based on MBBS scores of candidates.When junior doctors approached against the order before the SC that same year, the shocking disclosure was made that neither the petition in question nor the order under challenge was genuine.
The SC directed the CBI to get to the root of this conspiracy. At the same time, a doctor Rahul Verma filed a petition in Allahabad HC for staying of examination where his lawyer produced a copy of the May 25 order.The CBI took up investigation on a complaint by HC Deputy Registrar HD Kandpal on August 26, 1991 and proceeded against the duo for fabricating the order. However, for 24 years, CBI failed to identity the persons responsible for the fraud behind the May 25 1990 order.
The apex bench of Justices Ranjana Desai and Madan B lokur held that the complaint made by Kandpal was not valid under the Criminal Procedure Code. Besides, the Allahabad High Court filed an affidavit stating that the Registrar’s complaint to the CBI Special Judicial Magistrate, lucknow was filed without any authority.Sadly, this fact was never reported to the Magistrate who proceeded on the Registrar’s complaint since 1991. Although CBI conducted searches of the lawyer and his client and found copy of May 25 order, it was yet to identify the real conspirators responsible for obtaining the virtual order that resulted not only in depriving PG admissions to several doctors but even showed the judiciary in bad light.
The apex court held that the complaint by the Deputy Registrar was not valid and could not be acted upon by the Magistrate who lacked jurisdiction on account of the complaint lacking authority from the HC.