Uttarakhand High Court
"Smt. Suman vs Unknown on 16 March, 2026
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2026:UHC:2533
BA 1st No.240 of 2026
"Smt. Suman Vs. Central Bureau of Investigation"
Hon'ble Ashish Naithani, J.
Mr. Pranav Singh, learned counsel for the Appellant.
2. Mr. Piyush Garg, learned counsel for the CBI.
3. Heard learned counsel for the Applicant and learned
counsel for the CBI and perused the record.
4. The present First Bail Application has been moved by the
Applicant, Smt. Suman, who is in judicial custody since
28.11.2025, in connection with RC No. 0072025A0006, registered
by C.B.I., A.C.B., Dehradun, for the offences punishable under
Sections 238, 241 and 318(4) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and
Sections 12(1) and 12(2) of the Uttarakhand Competitive
Examination (Measures for Control and Prevention of Unfair
Means in Recruitment) Act, 2023.
5. Before approaching this Court, the Applicant had moved
bail applications before the court below. As per the material placed
on record, Bail Application No. 1318 of 2025 was rejected on
05.12.2025 and thereafter BA No. 79 of 2026 was also rejected by
the Special Court, Anti Corruption (CBI), Dehradun, vide order
dated 24.01.2026.
6. The case has its genesis in the Graduate Level Examination
conducted by the Uttarakhand Subordinate Services Selection
Commission on 21.09.2025. Initially, FIR No. 301 of 2025 came
to be registered at Police Station Raipur, District Dehradun, under
the provisions of the Uttarakhand Competitive Examination
(Measures for Control and Prevention of Unfair Means in
Recruitment) Act, 2023. Thereafter, the matter was taken up by the
SIT and was subsequently transferred for investigation to the CBI.
Upon such transfer, the CBI re-registered the matter as RC No.
0072025A0006 on 27.10.2025.
7. The allegation against the Applicant is that she was one of
the outside solvers in a live examination cheating arrangement.
The prosecution case is that co accused Mohd. Khalid, who was
inside the examination centre, caused photographs of portions of
the question booklet to be transmitted through his sister Sabia to
the present Applicant and that the Applicant solved the questions
and returned the answers during the subsistence of the
examination itself.
8. The material relied upon by the investigating agency
indicates that on the morning of 21.09.2025 there was a WhatsApp
exchange between Mohd. Khalid and the Applicant, wherein a
request was made to the Applicant to remain available at about
11:30 AM for solving multiple choice questions relating to his
sister's examination, and the Applicant responded affirmatively. It
is the specific case of the CBI that at about 11:35 AM three images
containing twelve questions were transmitted to the Applicant
through Sabia and that the answers thereto were sent back by
about 11:45 AM.
9. The CBI further relies upon the IPDR material to contend
that Mohd. Khalid, while being at the examination centre,
remained engaged in an internet session through WhatsApp
between 11:32:55 AM and 11:47:18 AM, with event timings
corresponding to the dispatch of the questions and the receipt of
solved answers. The record further reflects that at about 11:50 AM
the Applicant made a voice call of 32 seconds to Sabia.
10. The record also shows that during the course of
investigation one mobile phone make One Plus and a silver
coloured pen drive were seized from the Applicant on 23.09.2025.
Thereafter, on 25.09.2025, another mobile phone, namely Redmi
Note 8 Pro, without SIM, a paper notebook whose last page bore
handwritten answers to the twelve questions, and an application
addressed to the SHO, Kotwali Rishikesh, were also seized from
the Applicant.
11. Learned counsel for the Applicant submits that the
Applicant has been falsely implicated. It is submitted that, though
the Applicant may have solved the questions sent to her, she had
no knowledge that Mohd. Khalid was allegedly appearing in the
said examination in place of his sister Sabia. It is submitted that
the Applicant had come in contact with Mohd. Khalid in the year
2018, had saved his number in her mobile phone, and on the
relevant date bona fide believed that she was dealing with Khalid
himself and not with any larger fraudulent arrangement.
12. Learned counsel for the Applicant further submits that the
Applicant had no knowledge about any competitive examination
scheduled to be held on 21.09.2025. It is contended that she did
not know that the questions allegedly sent to her were questions
from a live examination and that, at best, the prosecution seeks to
build a serious criminal case on assumptions and conjectures.
13. It is also submitted on behalf of the Applicant that during
the earlier phase of investigation she had been treated as a witness
and her statement under Section 183 BNSS had been recorded.
According to learned counsel, even after the matter went to the
CBI for re investigation, no concrete material was collected so as
to establish conscious complicity of the Applicant in the alleged
offence.
14. Learned counsel for the Applicant next submits that there is
no recovery of any unexplained money from the Applicant and no
material to show that she was involved in selling question papers
or receiving pecuniary benefit. It is further submitted that the
investigating agency has not shown any regular telephonic
interaction or physical movement of the Applicant suggestive of a
continuing criminal nexus with Mohd. Khalid.
15. Learned counsel for the Applicant further submits that the
charge-sheet has already been filed, the Applicant has no criminal
antecedents, and she is willing to cooperate in the trial. It is also
submitted that the Applicant is a woman, is in custody since
28.11.2025, and the trial is likely to take time.
16. Learned counsel for the Applicant has also raised a plea of
parity by referring to FIR No. 509 of 2025, Police Station
Patelnagar, District Dehradun, in which co accused Hakam Singh
and Pankaj Gaur are stated to have been enlarged on bail by this
Court.
17. Per contra, learned counsel for the CBI opposes the bail
application and submits that the defence version is a deliberate
attempt to dilute the real nature of the accusation. It is submitted
that the digital material collected during investigation does not
disclose a vague or incidental role, rather it points towards the
conscious participation of the Applicant in solving live
examination questions during the continuance of the examination
itself.
18. Learned counsel for the CBI submits that the WhatsApp
exchange commencing in the morning of 21.09.2025 itself shows
that the Applicant had agreed to remain available for solving
multiple choice questions relating to an examination scheduled for
11:30 AM. It is therefore submitted that the plea that the Applicant
had no idea that an examination was taking place on that day is
prima facie falsified by the very electronic conversation on which
the defence itself places reliance.
19. Learned counsel for the CBI further submits that at 11:35
AM three images comprising pages 3, 4 and 5 of the question
paper, containing a total of twelve questions, were shared with the
Applicant and that the answers were returned at about 11:45 AM.
This chronology, according to the CBI, stands independently
fortified by the IPDR material relating to Mohd. Khalid's internet
activity from within the examination centre.
20. It is further submitted that the images sent to the Applicant
themselves contained visible features demonstrating that the
examination was in progress. The CBI asserts that one of the
images contained a visible portion of the OMR answer sheet and
that the nature of the images was such that their being part of a
live and ongoing examination could not have escaped notice.
21. Learned counsel for the CBI next submits that the post
occurrence conduct of the Applicant is also highly incriminating.
According to the counter affidavit, after the conversation between
the Applicant and Sabia, the three WhatsApp images containing
the question paper were deleted by Sabia, while the image of the
answers sent by the Applicant was deleted by the Applicant
herself. The CBI also alleges that the handwritten answers on the
notebook page were defaced to obliterate evidence.
22. Learned counsel for the CBI has further submitted that the
Applicant, being an Assistant Professor in a Government College
and a responsible public servant, cannot lightly claim ignorance of
the consequences of her acts. It is further contended that the
complaint allegedly prepared for the SHO, Kotwali Rishikesh, was
a subsequent attempt to create a false defence, and that the said
application was seized during investigation from the Applicant
rather than being a contemporaneous report to the local police.
23. Learned counsel for the CBI has also opposed the plea of
parity and submits that the cases relied upon by the Applicant arise
from a separate FIR and do not furnish a valid basis for claiming
parity in the present RC, where the role attributed to the Applicant
rests upon a distinct factual and digital foundation.
24. Having considered the rival submissions, this Court is of
the view that the parameters governing bail require the Court to
examine, at this stage, the nature of accusation, the prima facie
material collected during investigation, the seriousness of the
offence, the possibility of tampering with evidence, and the overall
impact of the alleged conduct on the administration of justice. At
the stage of bail, the Court is not expected to record conclusive
findings on guilt, yet it is equally not required to ignore strong
prima facie material appearing against the accused.
25. In the present case, the accusation is not of a casual or
peripheral nature. The case concerns alleged interference with the
integrity of a public recruitment examination. Offences of this
kind, if established, do not merely affect an individual
complainant, but strike at the fairness of the entire selection
process and undermine public confidence in competitive
recruitment.
26. What weighs significantly with this Court is that the role
attributed to the Applicant is supported, prima facie, by a specific
digital chronology. The morning exchange, wherein the Applicant
is shown to have agreed to solve multiple choice questions of an
examination scheduled later that day, the receipt of three images
containing twelve questions at about 11:35 AM, the return of the
answers at about 11:45 AM, and the correlated IPDR timings of
Mohd. Khalid's WhatsApp activity from within the examination
centre, together furnish a prima facie chain that is not readily
explainable as an innocent or accidental act.
27. The defence that the Applicant did not know that the
questions related to a live examination or that Mohd. Khalid was
appearing in place of his sister may be a matter to be tested at trial.
However, at this stage, such plea does not substantially erode the
prosecution case. First, the very initial exchange prima facie
conveys that the questions were to be solved in connection with an
examination fixed for that day at about 11:30 AM. Secondly, the
prosecution has specifically asserted that the images themselves
disclosed features of an ongoing examination, including visible
portion of an OMR sheet. These circumstances make the plea of
complete ignorance difficult to accept, at least at the present stage.
28. The subsequent conduct attributed to the Applicant is also a
relevant circumstance. The allegation that the answer images were
deleted from the Applicant's mobile phone, that the co accused
deleted the forwarded question paper images, and that the
handwritten answers on the notebook page were defaced, prima
facie lends support to the CBI's contention that the attempt was
not merely to assist academically, but to assist covertly and
thereafter obliterate traces of such assistance. The Court is
conscious that these are matters for proof at trial, yet at the present
stage they cannot be brushed aside as inconsequential.
29. The argument that no unexplained money has been
recovered from the Applicant also does not carry the matter much
further. The immediate allegation against the Applicant is not
confined to monetary gain, but to active participation in solving
live examination questions during the currency of the examination.
In such factual setting, absence of cash recovery by itself is not
decisive.
30. The submission that the Applicant was earlier treated as a
witness also does not, by itself, entitle her to bail. Investigations
often evolve upon further collection and analysis of material. What
is relevant for present purposes is whether there now exists prima
facie material justifying her implication. On the material cited by
the CBI, this Court is unable to hold that the implication is
manifestly arbitrary or wholly unsupported.
31. The plea of parity raised with reference to FIR No. 509 of
2025 also does not persuade this Court. Parity is not to be applied
mechanically. It operates only when the role, factual matrix, and
evidentiary posture are substantially comparable. In the present
case, the case diary material and the CBI counter affidavit place
the Applicant on a separate footing by attributing to her a direct
role as the solver of live questions during the examination
window. Hence, the orders passed in another FIR do not advance
the present bail plea.
32. This Court has also given due consideration to the fact that
the Applicant is a woman, has no criminal antecedents, is stated to
be in custody since 28.11.2025, and that the charge-sheet has
already been filed. These are circumstances in her favour and have
not been ignored. However, on a cumulative assessment, these
considerations are outweighed, at this stage, by the specific
electronic material, the seriousness of the accusation, and the
prima facie indications of deliberate destruction or obliteration of
evidence.
33. In view of the above, this Court is of the opinion that the
Applicant has not been able to make out a case for grant of bail at
this stage.
ORDER
Accordingly, the bail application is rejected.
It is made clear that any observation made herein is only for the purpose of deciding the present bail application and shall not influence the trial court while proceeding with the case on merits (Ashish Naithani, J.) 16.03.2026 Nitesh/