Man who cheated class 10 students released on probation

A 51-year-old teacher, convicted of cheating class 10 students 17 year ago by claiming that he could get them passed in the board exams, has been released on probation by a Delhi court which cited his antecedents and good conduct.
"Convict (Kailash Chand) is a teacher and had been running a coaching institute. Keeping in view the fact that convict has no previous criminal background, it is expedient to release him on probation of good conduct and behaviour," Metropolitan Magistrate Rakesh Kumar said.
"Benefit of probation is granted to the convict under Probation of Offender's Act subject to his furnishing bond of Rs 30,000 with one surety of like amount for a period of two years," the court said.

It, however, directed Kailash Chand, a north-east Delhi resident, to pay a compensation of Rs 8,000 each to the three victims -Nazma, Neetu and Arun Kumar, for cheating them in 1997-98.
"...Accused had cheated the complainant Arun Kumar Sharma along with other witness including Nazma and Neetu as well as other witnesses, as such accused is convicted for the offence of cheating under section 420 IPC."
The court was hearing a 17-year-old case lodged by Arun Kumar, alleging that in 1997-98, Chand had induced him to pay Rs 2,810 on the pretext that he would get him passed in the matriculation exam of CBSE Board.

After the payment, however, Kumar's application form got cancelled but Chand had neither informed him about it nore returned his money, his complaint had said.

According to the prosecution, two other students- Nazma and Neetu, had also contended that they had approached Chand after seeing an advertisement of his coaching centre in a newspaper.
They had said that Chand had taken tuition fee of Rs 2400 from them and had guaranteed to get their board exam cleared. However, when they asked Chand for their roll numbers for examination, he had said their forms had been cancelled and fled with their money.

Chand, however, denied all the allegations and sought leniency from the court on the ground that he had a family to look after.