The Supreme Court has set aside the bail of two accused persons in a case related to forgery and impersonation of a candidate during a government competitive examination, saying “they tried to compromise the sanctity of the exam”.

The apex court said Rajasthan High Court was not justified in granting them bail.

“Since surely there must have been thousands of people who appeared for the exam, and the respondent-accused persons, for their benefit, tried to compromise the sanctity of the exam, possibly affecting so many of those who would have put in an earnest effort to appear in the exam in the hope of securing a job, we concur with the view of the trial court that they are not entitled to the benefit of bail,” a bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and Ahsanuddin Amanullah said.

The court cancelled the bail while allowing an appeal filed by the Rajasthan government challenging the high court’s grant of bail in May last year to the two accused — Indraj Singh and Salman Khan — over allegations in an FIR registered by the state in February 2024 that the duo had compromised the sanctity of a civil engineer recruitment examination conducted by the government.

According to the FIR, Salman had allegedly appeared as a “dummy candidate” in place of co-accused Indraj by tampering with the attendance sheet.