Bengaluru: A seven-year-old case is back to haunt a retired fingerprint expert as investigations revealed that he had connived with two brothers, who were allegedly involved in a fraudulent act in the police sub-inspector recruitment examination, and had tampered with the fingerprints to help the brothers get a clean chit.
In the case that dates back to 2010, a fresh FIR has been registered against three people, including Kantharaju T.P., a retired in-charge police sub-inspector and fingerprint expert at the Karnataka State Fingerprint Bureau in Madiwala. Along with him, the brothers, Akshath B. Haddanavar and Vinaykumar B. Haddanavar, a doctor, have also been named accused.
The case was that Akshath and Vinaykumar had applied for PSI posts in 2009. After the selection process was completed, the preliminary list of selected candidates was published in January 2010. Akshath was selected, while Vinaykumar was not, as he did not appear for the viva-voce examination. After the preliminary list, the Gadag SP received an anonymous letter stating that Vinaykumar had assisted Akshath in the examination by wilfully changing his name as ‘Akshath B. Haddannavar' and ensuring that he got the seat next to his brother in the exam hall. He helped his brother write the examination.
The investigation revealed that the accused brothers had in fact conspired to ensure that Akshath would pass the examination with the assistance of Vinaykumar, who had engineered the circumstances to ensure that he is seated next to his brother by changing his name, as the candidates were to be seated in the alphabetical order and also got his date of birth changed to May 28, 1982 to match the date of birth of his brother. It was further alleged that he had also tampered with the names of his parents as Basappa and Mangala. As it was a clear case of forgery and cheating, an FIR was registered in the High Grounds police station in 2010.
“As part of the probe, there was a need to establish that Vinaykumar had written the exam sitting next to his brother. The investigating officer had collected his fingerprints to establish the presence of the petitioner on the scene. The samples were sent to the fingerprint expert, seeking his opinion. But he submitted a report indicating that the fingerprints could not be identified as that of Vinaykumar’s,” an official said.
As further investigation established that the fingerprints were tampered with and they were, in fact, of Vinaykumar and that fingerprint expert Kantharaju had connived with the accused, a fresh FIR has been registered. “As the place of occurrence of the crime falls under Madiwala station, the case will be transferred to the Madiwala police,” the official said.
SP’s brothers
The accused brothers are the siblings of a senior police officer of the rank of a Superintendent of Police. Akshath had been issued the appointment order after he was selected, but after the charges against him were established, the police department had cancelled the order.
