Which districts were favoured, and how

Candidates for the post of JBT teachers from Bhiwani, Fatehabad, Jind and Mahendragarh were glaringly favoured at the behest of the Ajay Chautala, who was a Lok Sabha member from Bhiwani in 2000, according to the CBI report quoted by the special court in Delhi in its judgment that convicted Ajay, his father and the then CM Om Prakash Chauatala and 53 others in the job scam on Wednesday.

"Investigation disclosed that the number of JBT teachers declared successful district-wise were not in accordance with the vacancies published district-wise in the advertisement dated November 15, 1999 (primary education), which shows that the candidates of certain districts were favoured, specifically of Bhiwani, Fatehabad, Jind and Mahendergarh districts," the CBI report categorically stated.

The agency presented records as to how a large number of candidates had been declared selected while the number of the vacancies advertised for those respective district was quite less. Vice versa, the number of successful candidates in the districts that were not favoured was lower than the number of vacancies.

According to the official record presented before the court by the CBI, against the 60 vacancies in Bhiwani, 312 candidates had been declared passed; against 120 vacancies in Jind, 265 had been taken; against 292 vacancies in Fatehabad, 335 candidates had been selected; and in Mahendragarh, while there were 83 vacancies, 283 candidates had been declared selected.

The CBI probe also revealed that detailed instructions had been given by the Chautala government for conducting interviews as per which certain roll numbers were allotted to each district, and thereafter the chairpersons were to further allot the roll numbers to the candidates which began with 0001 to 5,000 for Ambala, and ended at 85001 to 9000 for Panchkula, in plain continuity, thus reflecting which student was from which district.

The exceeding number of candidates from the 'favoured' districts were adjusted in the other districts by adopting a method of giving 17 or more marks, the CBI report held,
This allotment of extra marks to certain candidates, in contrast to the remaining candidates getting very low interview marks, "is almost a sure guarantee of selection of such candidates," the CBI said. The "inevitable conclusion" was that minds at "the highest level" were working "zealously" prior to preparation of the favoured candidates' lists.

Likewise, the report said, "the pattern of interview marks as appearing in the directorate lists (the fake lists) more or less serves the purpose of containing the candidates of reserved categories within the vacancies arising in their respective categories."