The fraud that sent Mushataq Ahmad Peer to jail for 16 years was conceived by him at the very first opportunity he got to resist dishonesty as controller of professional entrance examinations, the recent judgment in the historic case reveals.
In February 2012, a few months before the examinations were to be held, controller exams BOPEE, Gopal Gupta retired from service and handed over the charge to chairman Peer.
Instead of informing the government that the post needed to be filled up, Peer quietly kept the charge of controller exams to himself and got access to “master paper sets”.
That is when the former chairman started hatching a conspiracy with accused-turned approver Farooq Itoo, known to him since 2001, to sell the paper sets to him along with answer keys, bagging Rs 60 lakh, the police Crime Branch investigation has revealed.
During the probe, Gupta told investigators master copies of question papers remained with controller after corrections in publisher’s copies and its proof reading.
“Having handled the job (of the chairman and the controller) alone, Mushtaq Peer had the occasion, time and opportunity to make and retain copies of the master sets of papers with him,” the judgment reads.
Though Peer had in his deposition told investigators that he never held two positions, testimony of several employees who were working in the BOPEE, including his private secretary contradicted him.
Controller of exams has the authority to decide on setting of the papers under complete secrecy till deceleration of results, though under guidance of Chairman.
But in this case Peer held on to both positions, giving himself freehand to execute the fraud.
The testimony of Amrit Singh, then private secretary to Peer proved that the disgraced former bureaucrat functioned as controller and was responsible for setting, printing, transportation and safe custody of the examination material.
The approver, Itoo also told investigators he had read the question papers (sold to him by Peer) with correct answers encircled.
“The public servant who occupied highest position in the board and is at nucleolus in orchestrating the misadventure in what could be described as most shocking betrayal of trust and confidence of one and all including millions of aspirants and their parents in the institution in worst kind of abuse of his position for making fast buck… by orchestrating the criminal conspiracy for putting on sale the question papers, the secrecy of which he was under obligation to maintain,” reads the judgment.
The court said in its judgment had it not been for Peer’s “dastardly crime” it would not have been possible for anyone to even have a glimpse of the question papers if he maintained standards of probity expected from a public servant.
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