A day after the Supreme Court ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to probe all cases related to the Vyapam scam and over 40 deaths linked to it, more details about the involvement of Madhya Pradesh High Court judges and top ranking government officials into another admission scam here have now come to the fore.
A list of top High Court judges with alleged links to the murkier Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board (MPPEB) recruitment scam, also called the Vyapam scam, has been handed over in a sealed envelope to the Chief Justice of India.
Whistleblowers have told the apex court that the ‘kith and kin’ of judges, IAS and IPS officers are among those who bought seats in private institutions, medical and dental colleges.
Whistleblower Anand Rai said that he and some others had submitted the names of judges linked to the admissions scam in private colleges to Chief Justice HL Duttu in a sealed envelope.
On the basis of these documents, the whistleblowers have reportedly contended before the apex court that since the “kith and kin” of judges are beneficiaries, the judiciary in Madhya Pradesh cannot be objective in the hearing of the admission scam
The whistleblowers also informed the Supreme court about the threats to their lives in their resolve to expose the ‘big fish’ in the Vyapam scam, including Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.
Whistleblowers also alleged that the scam is not just confined to government institutions, paid seats were given out in private medical and dental colleges to relatives of ministers, judges and bureaucrats.
There have been over 40 deaths in the scandal, in which thousands of people are alleged to have paid bribes in return for government jobs or for college admissions.
The Supreme Court yesterday said that the CBI would investigate the scandal as well as the deaths linked to it.
Nearly 2,000 people have been arrested since the scandal erupted in 2012, including a former state minister, several top bureaucrats and hundreds of students.
The top court also yesterday issued notice to the MP Governor Ram Naresh Yadav while responding to a petition seeking his removal. He and his son were accused last year of accepting bribes in a First Information Report or FIR by the Special Task Force of the state police that is investigating the Vyapam scam.
