Vyapam scam: CBI chargesheets 592 people in 2012 PMT exam case, including four ex-officials

The Central Bureau of Investigation, which is probing the multi-crore medical scam in Madhya Pradesh, has filed a chargesheet against 592 people, including four former Vyapam officials in the 2012 pre-medical test (PMT) exams, ANI reported on Thursday. The ex-Vyapam officials named in chargesheet include the then Vyapam director Pankaj Trivedi, Nitin Mohindra who was the senior system analyst, the then deputy system analyst Ajay Kumar Sen, and then programmer CK Mishra. All four of them are understood to have filed application for anticipatory bail, the CBI officials said. The promoters of three Bhopal-based private medical colleges were also mentioned in the chargesheet.

#VYAPAM Names in CBI chargesheet of Private Colleges Chairmans: Ajay Goenka, Chirayu medical college,SN Vijaywargiya, Peoples medical college,Suresh Singh Bhadauria, Medical college Bhopal and JN Chowkse, LN Medical college

— ANI (@ANI) November 23, 2017

However, Suresh Singh Bhadauriya, who is among the named promoters, told PTI that neither his nor his college’s name was mentioned in the CBI charge sheet. Engine-bogey system Explaining the modus operandi, the CBI officials said middlemen followed an engine-bogey system for pairing of candidates to take examination in alleged connivance with certain Vyapam officials. In this, a bright candidate (who had already taken coaching to prepare for the test and is well versed with the examination pattern) would be alloted a roll number just ahead of a not-so-bright aspirant so that the latter could cheat from him, they said. The bright candidate would act as engine and the other as the bogey, the official said. The middlemen were charging anything between Rs 15 and 20 lakh for this pairing. Giving further details of the case, they said on the basis of successful selection, the bright students would then take admission only in the four private medical colleges named in the charge sheet, despite they being in the merit list and hence eligible for admission in government institutions.   [caption id=“attachment_3857713” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. News[/caption] These successful candidates, in connivance with middlemen and office bearers of private medical colleges, would later withdraw their admission, the officials said. Instead of reporting these vacancies to state government department concerned, the college authorities would fill these seats through management quota charging a hefty amount from a minimum of Rs 50 lakh to Rs 1 crore, they said. The students who took admission through the management quotas were not the ones who sat in the examination, the officials said. Among those named, 334 are ’engine-bogey’ candidates, 155 guardians of some of these candidates, 46 invigilators during the examination, 26 officials of four private medical colleges, 22 middlemen and two officers of department of medical education, Madhya Pradesh, the officials said. The two state government officials named in the charge sheet are SC Tiwari, the then director, and NM Srivastava, the then joint director in the medical education department, they said. Of the total people named in the charge sheet, 245 have been made accused for the first time. The Times of India pointed out that many among those named in the CBI chargesheet on Thursday had been previously let off by the Madhya Pradesh special task force (STF) during its investigation. This is the second chargesheet to be filed in the case in less than a month’s time. On 31 October, the investigating agency had filed a chargesheet against 490 people in the medical scam, while excluding Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

In the previous chargesheet, the CBI named three Vyapam officials, three racketeers, 17 middlemen, 297 paper solvers and beneficiary candidates and 170 guardians of beneficiary candidates. Most accused were operating from Bhopal, Indore, Ujjain, Shahdol, Ratlam, and Sagar in Madhya Pradesh.

After Chouhan was kept out of the chargesheet by the CBI, Anand Rai— who exposed the Vyapam scam— had said that the whistleblowers have lost all hope in the state STF and believe only the Supreme Court can help them. The CBI found that the organised rackets employed students from across the country to allegedly impersonate medical students and appear in recruitment exams since 2008. Middlemen manipulated seating arrangements and forged answersheets in exchange for lakhs of rupees. The scam in the Vyavsayik Pariksha Mandal (Vyapam) or the Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board broke out in 2013 with the arrest of 20 people in Indore. It quickly snowballed into a major political crisis for Chouhan and led to more than 2,000 arrests, including those of politicians, bureaucrats, and middlemen. Over 40 persons, including witnesses, accused, and alleged beneficiaries, died in mysterious circumstances ever since the scam was exposed. The Supreme Court then asked the CBI to probe the alleged conspiracy to eliminate suspects booked in the scam and investigate the deaths of 24 individuals. The CBI rejected the link between the deaths and the scam, and concluded that it was a result of a goof-up by the Madhya Pradesh police. The agency said the police had wrongly included the names of the dead persons as accused in the FIR in the cases. With inputs from PTI