CM alone cannot be prosecuted in JBT scam: Chautala

Former Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala, sentenced to 10 years' jail term in the JBT scam, today contended before the Delhi High Court that he alone cannot be prosecuted in the case as the entire cabinet had taken the decision on the recruitment of teachers.
Appearing for Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) chief Chautala who is seeking suspension of sentence, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi submitted before Justice Mukta Gupta that the cabinet had twice held meetings in 1999 on the teachers recruitment policy but only the Chief Minister was held responsible.
"The trial court has failed to appreciate that it was the entire Council of Ministers which is responsible for a Cabinet decision and not any one minister."

"Only singling out Chautala merely because he is the chief minister is unfair," the lawyer also said.
On January 22, the trial court had convicted and sentenced Chautala to ten years in jail for illegally recruiting 3,206 junior teachers 12 years ago.
The counsel also argued that CBI had made the case against Chautala relying on the testimony of co-accused Sanjiv Kumar, an IAS officer who the probe agency had already "discredited" before the Supreme Court in a PIL filed by Kumar.
"It is in the CBI record that he (Kumar) is a discredited man who lied in the Supreme Court.... But the agency had relied upon some of Kumar's statement against Chautala by adopting a pick and choose policy," the lawyer said.

The counsel also referred to the statement of a prosecution witness, a woman IAS officer, and said nowhere in her statement she said that she was under the pressure from Chief Minister for the recruitment of teachers on a large scale.