15 years after Navy exam paper leak, CBI court convicts officer, businessman

A former Naval commander and the proprietor of a coaching centre was convicted for leaking the paper of the Western Naval Command’s LDC exam in 2010.

Fifteen years after a recruitment scandal rocked the Navy, a special CBI court on Tuesday convicted a former Naval commander and the proprietor of a coaching centre for leaking the paper of the Western Naval Command’s lower division clerk (LDC) exam in 2010. Four other co-accused were acquitted by special CBI judge Amit V Kharkar for want of evidence.

The court held INS Angre commander and president of the Western Naval Command’s recruitment board, Ramesh Chand Saini, and the proprietor of Manasa International Academy in Visakhapatnam, Rambir Singh Rawat, guilty of conspiracy and criminal misconduct.(Representational Photo/AP)

The court held INS Angre commander and president of the Western Naval Command’s recruitment board, Ramesh Chand Saini, and the proprietor of Manasa International Academy in Visakhapatnam, Rambir Singh Rawat, guilty of conspiracy and criminal misconduct.

Both had acted “with dishonest intention to cheat the Indian Navy and general public and caused wrongful gain to accused persons and wrongful loss to Indian Navy,” the court said, sentencing them to three years’ rigorous imprisonment and a fine of ₹50,000 each, with a default sentence of one month’s simple imprisonment.

The duo was, however, cleared of charges of cheating, forgery and use of forged documents.

The case originated with a CBI raid at United Lodge near Crawford Market, where candidates had gathered on the eve of the LDC examination scheduled on September 26, 2010. The raid led to recovery of question papers, which the court found to be identical to those set by Saini in terms of “content and order”.

Saini had “exclusive knowledge and custody” of the examination paper and carried the same on a pen drive to Pune, where it was printed by Atharva Consultancy and Allied Services between September 16 and 18, 2010, the court said. Witnesses from the press too testified that the papers were printed under their supervision.

“The chain of evidence points out that Saini was aware of the question paper and they were in his custody all throughout,” the court stated.

Rawat, who ran the coaching centre, received the leaked paper and distributed it among candidates, according to the judgement.

“The accused No 2 leaked the said questions to various candidates with the help of co-accused persons,” the court noted. Identical papers were also seized from Rawat’s academy in Visakhapatnam.

Four other accused were acquitted of all charges, including criminal conspiracy, cheating, forgery, use of forged documents, and offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act. The accused were administrative officer at the Naval Dockyard in Mumbai, Ram Chandra Naik; Hoshiar Singh Rawat, a farmer from Haryana; D Srinivasa Murthy, an administrative officer with the Eastern Naval Command in Visakhapatnam; and Kuldeep Kumar, a private sector employee from Bihar. The prosecution had failed to establish their involvement beyond reasonable doubt, the court said.

“Considering this hypothesis, the benefit of doubt would accrue to the accused,” the judge noted, citing gaps in the chain of evidence and the death of the proprietor of Atharva Consultancy and Allied Services before the trial.