Allahabad High Court
Alok Kumar Trivedi (Alok Trivedi As ... vs State Of U.P. Thru. Addl. Chief Secy. ... on 24 August, 2023
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD, LUCKNOW BENCH ?Neutral Citation No. - 2023:AHC-LKO:56630 Court No. - 16 Case :- CRIMINAL MISC. BAIL APPLICATION No. - 5998 of 2023 Applicant :- Alok Kumar Trivedi (Alok Trivedi As Stated In The Charge Sheet) Opposite Party :- State Of U.P. Thru. Addl. Chief Secy. (Home), Lko. Counsel for Applicant :- Rajesh Chandra Mishra Counsel for Opposite Party :- G.A. Hon'ble Subhash Vidyarthi,J.
1. Heard Sri Rajesh Chandra Mishra, learned counsel for the applicant, Sri Rao Narendra Singh, learned A.G.A.-I for the State and perused the records.
2. The instant application has been filed seeking release of the applicant on bail in Case Crime No. 0382 of 2022, under Sections 120B, 420, 468, 467, 471, 419 I.P.C. and 66D of the Information Technology Act, registered at Police Station Hazratganj, District Lucknow.
3. The aforesaid case has been registered on the basis of an F.I.R. lodged on 04.11.2022 against Uptron Powertronics Limited and nominated vendor Company, V-3 Soft Solution Pvt. Ltd., and its representative-Kuldeep Singh and some unknown persons, alleging that Uptron Powertronics Limited was assigned the work of conducting online counselling of NEET 2021 for admission to BAMS, BUMS & BHMS cources. Uptron Powertronics Limited had engaged V-3 Soft Solution Pvt. Ltd., for carrying out the work and the aforesaid company in turn sublet the work to various persons. The Company and its associates tampered with the data obtained from DGME and they verified some forged documents submitted by some candidates. A total of 73,338 candidates were selected in the process, and upon verification of the document of the selected candidates, it came to the light that various candidates who could not succeed in the examination and various persons who did not even participate in the NEET examination, were admitted through online process. When the aforesaid facts were being examined for verifying the correct position, named accused Kuldeep Singh corrupted the data present in his laptop computer. However, the hard-disk of the computer was taken to NIC office, data was recovered and it was matched with the NEET data available in DGME office and discrepancies between both the datas came to light. As many as 1180 names of the candidates were found different from the candidates selected in NEET examination and 22 persons were such, as did not even appear in the NEET examination. 927 of such persons have been allotted seats in various colleges through counselling and 891 students have already obtained admissions on the basis of forged documents, after altering their NEET result, under a criminal conspiracy with the agency which has conducted the online counselling process.
4. In the affidavit filed in support of bail application, it has been stated that the applicant is innocent, he has been falsely implicated in the present case and he has no criminal history.
5. The State has filed a counter affidavit annexing therewith copies of material collected during investigation. Copies of the screenshots of Whatsapp chat between the applicant and named co-accused Kuldeep Singh regarding admission of persons have been annexed with the counter affidavit. Statements of some students, who have been admitted, have also been annexed with the counter affidavit wherein they admitted that they were not selected through NEET but one Mohd Akram had assured to get them admitted provided they paid Rs.2,00,000/- as donation in addition to the prescribed fee. They stated that they had deposited some amount with Mohd Akharm and as per his direction, they met the named co-accused, Kuldeep Singh and the applicant, who took their original documents and thereafter a college was allotted to them.
6. A rejoinder affidavit has been filed on behalf of the applicant stating that five co-accused persons have already been granted bail and copies of the bail orders have been annexed with the rejoinder affidavit.
7. Informant of the case, Satya Narain Singh has himself been made an accused and he has been granted bail by means of the order dated 24.05.2023 passed by Additional Sessions Judge/Special Judge P.C. Act, Court No.3, Lucknow.
8. One Dr. Ritu Garg has been granted bail by means of the order dated 24.05.2023 passed by this Court in Criminal Misc. Bail Application No.4650 of 2023 and in the aforesaid order it is recorded that she was director of a medical college and 76 students were admitted to her college. Order granting bail to Dr Ritu Garg mentions that learned AGA had fairly conceded the fact that no content related to interpolation in the result provided by the DGME was found against her.
9. One Prabodh Singh has been granted bail by this Court by means of the order dated 25.04.2023 passed by this Court in Criminal Misc. Bail Application No.540 of 2023 and the order records that the aforesaid co-accused was working as Additional General Manager in Uptron Powertronics Ltd., which company had assigned the work of conducting online counseling to another company, M/s V-3 Soft Solution Private Ltd., and the counselling was not carried out by Uptron Powertronics Ltd.
10. Another co-accused-Rupesh Srivastava has been granted bail by means of the order dated 25.04.2023 passed by this Court in Criminal Misc. Bail Application No.859 of 2023 after recording that he was working as a Technical Consultant in M/s Uptron Powertronics Ltd. and the work of data entry was done by M/s V-3 Soft Solution Pvt. Ltd.
11. The learned counsel for the applicant has very fairly submitted that case set up against the applicant is not at par with the case set up against those accused persons, who have already been granted bail.
12. Per contra, learned A.G.A. has submitted that bail applications of three co-accused Harsh Verdhan Tiwari @ Sonal, Saurabh Maurya and Dr. Vijay Yadav have been rejected by means of three separate orders dated 25.04.2023 passed by this Court in Criminal Misc. Bail Application Nos.3287 of 2023, 3606 of 2023 and 3359 of 2023 respectively. Two of the persons whose bail applications have been rejected are employees of the Company, which was assigned the work and third person, Dr. Vijay Yadav is Director of an Institution.
13. Learned counsel for the applicant has submitted that investigation of the case is still going on and trial is likely to take several years before its conclusion and the applicant cannot be kept in jail indefinitely.
14. Although delay in conclusion of trial is relevant factor to be kept in mind while deciding the bail application of the accused-persons, but this factor cannot override other considerations, particularly the nature of allegation and the material relied upon, coupled with effect of the offence on the society at large.
15. Having considered the aforesaid facts and circumstances of the case and keeping in view the fact that allegations leveled against the accused-persons are of carrying out the large scale illegalities in making admissions to graduate courses in Ayurvedic, Homeopathic and Unani medicines thereby admitting 928 ineligible persons, out of whom 21 had not even participated in the NEET examination. This act resulted in wrongfully taking away the rights of so many deserving meritorious candidates of getting admission in medical courses and at the same time resulting in entry of incompetent and ineligible students in medical courses, which may have a catastrophic effect on the society at large when such incompetent persons, who secure their admission by illegal means, will get medical degrees and start treating patients. The material relied upon against the applicant is the statement of the co-accused persons-Kuldeep Singh and some students who have secured admission by illegal means and Whatsapp chats between the applicant and co-accused-Kuldeep Singh, which prima facie indicate involvement of the applicant in commission of the offence.
16. Without making any further observation, I am of the view that the aforesaid facts do not warrant exercise of direction of this Court by enlarging the applicant on bail.
17. Accordingly, this bail application stands rejected.
(Subhash Vidyarthi, J.) Order Date :- 24.8.2023/prateek