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Madhya Pradesh
The troubles of four-time Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chauhan are likely to increase. On Monday, the Supreme Court has sent notices to the current government of Madhya Pradesh and the investigating agency CBI, which gave a clean chit to Shivraj Singh in this case, regarding this big scam that took place during the tenure of the then Shivraj government in MP.
This action has been taken after hearing the petition of former Madhya Pradesh MLA and whistleblower of this scam, Paras Saklecha. A bench of Justice Sanjeev Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar in the Supreme Court issued this notice considering the seriousness of the matter.
The Vyapam scam first came to light in July 2009, after which an inquiry committee was formed on 17 December 2009. However, despite this, no concrete action was taken in the investigation of the scam between 2010 and 2013. On this, Paras Saklecha had filed a petition, in which he alleged that no action was being taken against the responsible officials.
Paras Saklecha had earlier filed a petition regarding this matter in Indore High Court, but his petition was rejected there. He told that on 11 December 2014, he had given a 350-page application to STF, in which he had highlighted the seriousness of this matter.
Now, Rajya Sabha MP and senior advocate Vivek Tankha and Ritam Khare argued on behalf of Saklecha in the Supreme Court. The court has issued notice to the CBI and the Madhya Pradesh government to respond, which makes it clear that questions are being raised on the progress made so far in the investigation of the Vyapam scam and the role of responsible officials.
This notice is an indication that the Supreme Court, understanding the seriousness of the matter, is ready to play an active role, and now it remains to be seen how the CBI and the MP government react to this.
Vyapam scam whistleblower Paras Saklecha has made serious allegations in his recent application, in which he has pointed out irregularities in the investigation by the CBI and STF. According to Saklecha, he had submitted a 350-page application under the press release issued by the STF in 2014, in which important documents involved in the investigation of Vyapam were submitted.
Saklecha has been saying, 'He gave oral evidence as well as a 71-page written statement and 240 pages of documents to the STF on 12 June 2015. Despite this, no concrete action was taken even after giving a statement for 13 hours from 11 to 13 September 2019. After this, he also gave a statement to the CBI in October 2016, but no action was taken on that either.'
In his application, Saklecha has raised questions on the role of the then Chief Minister, who was also in charge of the Medical Education Department, Chief Secretary, Director General of Police, Principal Secretary, Director of Medical Education, and other responsible officials including the Chairman of Vyapam. He says that in December 2009, orders were given to investigate the recruitment in government and private medical colleges, but the recruitment in private colleges was not investigated.
Saklecha has alleged that the CBI and STF have whitewashed the investigation and ignored many important documents. He said that only small people, such as racketeers, brokers, and students, have been accused in this scam, while efforts have been made to save the big people. He says that such a big racket running for 10 years was not possible without government and administrative support.
850 pages of evidence presented: Saklecha has presented documentary evidence of about 850 pages, which he has presented as proof of his facts. He has pleaded in the court that action should be taken by investigating within the stipulated time frame. Seeing the seriousness of this matter, the Supreme Court has issued notice to the CBI and the Madhya Pradesh government, which makes it clear that the court is interested in a thorough investigation of this scam. Now it remains to be seen how the CBI and the MP government react on this issue.
The CBI had filed a chargesheet in November 2017 in the multi-crore Vyapam exam scam in Madhya Pradesh in 2013, which included the names of 490 people. Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan was given a clean chit in this. While submitting the chargesheet in a special court in Bhopal, the CBI had said that a hard disk drive seized from the Madhya Pradesh police has not been tampered with. This was alleged by senior Congress leader and former Chief Minister Digvijay Singh.
The CBI chargesheet said, “We investigated the allegations made by Digvijay Singh and another person regarding tampering of the hard disk drive seized from the computer of the then chief system analyst of Vyapam on July 18, 2013.”
Based on the CFSL reports and other evidence, the CBI had concluded that the drive was not tampered with. The chargesheet said, “We have submitted a status quo report to the Supreme Court on the findings of the investigation into the alleged tampering of the hard disk.” Those named in the chargesheet included three Vyapam officials, three rack-sheeters, 17 middlemen, 297 paper solvers and beneficiary candidates and guardians of 170 beneficiary candidates.
The CBI took over the investigation of the case on July 9, 2015 on the orders of the Supreme Court. These charge sheets were related to the pre-medical test of 2013. It was one of the many cases of irregularities in the examinations conducted by Vyapam. Later, the attitude of the CBI and other investigating agencies in other cases was also similar (indecisive/giving clean chit) to big leaders, officers and 'crocodiles' associated with the government and the ruling party. The notice of the Supreme Court has now made the influential people who were saved restless.
The Vyapam scam is believed to have started in the year 2007-08, when irregularities were revealed in the report of the Local Fund Auditor Office. In the year 2013, Indore Police arrested 20 people from several hotels in the city, out of which 17 people were from Uttar Pradesh and they had come to the examination center to sit in place of the real candidates.
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