Vyapam scam reaches Supreme Court again
So far, 44 accused in the case have died under mysterious circumstances
By : j. venkatesan
Update: 2015-07-01 03:18 GMT
New Delhi: Expressing serious concern over the number of deaths of accused taking place frequently in the Madhya Pradesh’s Vyapam (Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board), two Public Interest Petitions have been filed in the Supreme Court demanding a CBI probe into mysterious deaths.
In the petitions filed by Human Rights activists Anand Rai and others it is pointed out that in the Vyapam scam some judges and children of judicial officers are the beneficiaries. They submitted that the SIT probe being conducted by the state government was focusing into the scam in respect of government colleges, but a bigger scam was yet to be unearthed as private colleges also benefited due to government seats allotted to private colleges.
The MP High Court could not monitor the scam in view of the involvement of judicial officers. Due to this scam the entire education system in MP has been corrupted. So far 44 accused in this case have died under mysterious circumstances. Unless the probe was conducted by the CBI under the supervision of the apex court the real truth would not come out and the culprits could not be apprehended. In November last, the apex court had declined to hand over the probe to the CBI but asked the SIT to complete the probe against high profile persons including the state governor and some ministers in the ‘Vyapam scam’ by March 31 and the period was extended by another four months thereafter. The SIT probe had been completed in 55 cases chargesheets had been filed.
In respect of the remaining 28 cases, including probe against high profile personalities, the State was granted further more time. The STF had told the High court that most deaths had occurred before it took over the investigation.
One high profile deaths was that of Shailesh, son of Governor Ram Naresh Yadav. The STF had also registered an FIR against Yadav for alleged involvement in recruitment of forest guards.
Meanwhile, as the body of Narendra Singh Tomar, an accused in the Vyapam scam, was on Tuesday cremated, his father demanded a CBI probe of the death. Tomar (29), a government veterinarian, had been arrested in February on the charge of helping a student from Jhabua to crack the 2009 Pre-Medical Test through fraudulent means.