Bhopal: The Madhya Pradesh high court on Wednesday deferred till July 20 the state government’s plea for a CBI probe into the Vyapam scam because the Supreme Court is hearing several petitions on the same matter.
Chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s application came up in the high court during the hearing on the monitoring of Special Task Force (STF)investigation into the scam.
The Supreme Court will hear on Thursday a plea by Congress leader Digvijaya Singh and three whistle-blowers seeking an apex court-monitored CBI probe into the Vyapam scam and the string of mystery deaths related to the examination and recruitment scandal.
Singh and the three whistle-blowers – Ashish Chaturvedi, Anand Rai and Prashant Pandey – while demanding for a SC-monitored CBI probe said they have no faith in the state agency Special Task Force that is probing the scam.
On Tuesday, bowing to public pressure, chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had recommended a CBI probe into the snowballing examination scandal that has bruised his government’s credibility with people connected to the case dying mysteriously.
He had announced the decision at a hurriedly-called press conference in Bhopal and his government filed a plea in the state high court to allow a central inquiry into the Vyapam scam that saw widespread rigging of competitive exams for entry into Madhya Pradesh’s professional education institutes, with everybody from students and politicians to bureaucrats and doctors under suspicion.
At least 2,000 people have been arrested and another 500 are wanted in the scam that was unearthed in 2013 with multiple rackets that helped candidates rig the examinations for money, including employing imposters to write test papers, manipulating seating arrangements as well as supplying forged answer sheets.
