An army court court-martialed 11 soldiers for leaking the entrance examination question papers for an engineering diploma. Among the accused is a havildar from the Bombay Engineers Group and Centre in Khadki, near Pune, Maharashtra, who received a sentence of 13 months of rigorous imprisonment.
The Army initiated the court-martial of 11 soldiers for leaking question papers associated with a diploma entrance exam for the Corps of Engineers.
Reportedly, seven Summary Court Martials (SCM) and four District Court Martials (DCM) have been ordered in relation to the leak.
A havildar from the Bombay Engineers Group and Centre in Khadki, near Pune, Maharashtra, sentenced by a District Court Martial to 13 months of rigorous imprisonment and dismissal from service on May 30. Additionally, the accused demoted to the ranks.
In a separate trial related to the same case, a Summary Court Martial sentenced a soldier to 89 days of rigorous imprisonment, dismissal from service, and demotion. However, upon review, the sentence was reduced to one month of imprisonment.
While almost a dozen soldiers are facing disciplinary action and court martials for leaking the diploma entrance exam question paper, it is reported that no officers responsible for handling the question papers have faced similar consequences.
The havildar, whose trial concluded on May 30, is facing three charges under Section 63 of the Army Act for actions prejudicial to good order and military discipline.
The charges state that between August 20, 2021, and September 10, 2021, at Khadki, he improperly assisted a havildar or storekeeper of the Bombay Engineers Group & Centre in Khadki, Pune, to obtain Rs 3,00,000 from another havildar, Rs 2,50,000 from a Naik, and Rs 2,20,000 from another Naik in exchange for providing question papers for the Diploma Course Second Batch 2021 Entrance Examination.
According to the defence arguments, mobile phones confiscated from the accused and others were not presented at the court martial, Court of Inquiry, or Summary of Evidence.
The defence counsel contended that investigating officers testified during the court martial that they conducted initial investigations and observed large financial transactions on the mobile phones of the accused havildar and others. However, no extracts or call data records from the mobile phones were produced as evidence before the court martial.
The defense counsel further argued that an Independent Member, Sub Sanjay Bandre, documented as present in the Summary of Evidence on September 14, 2022, despite being on casual leave from the end of August to the end of September 2022. It alleged that the Subedar’s signature on the Summary of Evidence dated September 14 falsified.
Additionally, the defense questioned the transparency of certain facts in the court martial, such as who conducted the examination, which authority regulated it, the location of the exam centers, the source of the exam papers, the custodians of the exam papers, the preparation process of the questions, the individuals responsible for framing the questions, the distribution methods of the exam papers, whether the exam actually scheduled, and which authority responsible for executing the exam schedule.
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Conversely, the prosecution in the court martial relied on the banking transactions of the accused, uncovering large sums of money deposited during the relevant period, which the accused attempted to justify as ‘loans.’ However, the prosecution demonstrated that these funds were payments for procuring the diploma entrance exam papers.
The soldier sentenced to 89 days of rigorous imprisonment later claimed he coerced into pleading guilty during the Summary Court Martial, which he stated lasted only 10-15 minutes. He also alleged that during the Court of Inquiry and the Summary of Evidence, his signatures obtained under duress and threats of job loss, denial of leave, and imprisonment.
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