Supreme Court to hear Vyapam scam petitions today: Here's what action it could take

Bhopal: The Madhya Pradesh High Court on Wednesday deferred till 20 July a decision on the state government’s request to refer the Vyapam scam investigation to the CBI. The division bench of Chief Justice AM Khanwilkar and Justice Alok Aradhe left it to the Supreme Court, which is expected to hear similar pleas from Congress leader Digvijaya Singh and three whistle-blowers – Ashish Chaturvedi, Anand Rai and Prashant Pandey on Thursday. The Supreme Court is also scheduled to hear a petition from the Congress on 15 July for the removal of the Madhya Pradesh Governor, Ram Naresh Yadav for his alleged involvement in the Vyapam scam. [caption id=“attachment_2334254” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  AFP image[/caption] The Governor faces an assortment of charges under IPC, including Sec 420 (fraud), and Prevention of Corruption Act, most of which are non-bailable. An appointee of the previous UPA central government, 88-year-old Yadav is expected to continue in office till September 2015. Yadav’s resignation, however, continues to be a matter of speculation. The state government might possibly not be so keen to see it happen as the Governor’s departure would lend substance to the Congress charges and would make Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan vulnerable. Besides, once he leaves he will be free to spill the beans. The High Court ruling to adjourn the matter till July 20 opens up several scenarios. The Supreme Court had earlier asked the Madhya Pradesh STF to complete all investigations and present its chargesheets by 15 July. That looks difficult given the current pace, as the STF has yet to file charge-sheets in 25 percent of the cases. The Supreme Court might take a call after seeing what progress the STF makes. The apex court may also ask the high court to take an overall view on all petitions, except the one relating to the Governor, since the state government has approached it. If the Supreme Court agrees to order a CBI probe into the matter it will also announce whether it will monitor the probe. The state government pleaded on Wednesday that though the Special Task Force (STF) was probing the scam efficiently under the watch of the Special Investigation Team (SIT), headed by retired justice Chandresh Bhushan, “the government was seeking a CBI probe after the recent unfortunate developments” and demand from certain quarters to clear the air. Chouhan was under pressure from opposition and from within the BJP to order a CBI probe following a series of mysterious deaths. The sudden death of TV reporter Akshay Singh on Saturday after he had interviewed the parents of an accused Namrata Damor had dramatically drawn the nation’s focus on the scam. The decibel level came down considerably on Wednesday after Chouhan bowed to the public demand for CBI probe. The death-a-day sequence also broke after four days. But a new twist emerged in the autopsy of Namrata Damor who had died mysteriously in 2012. There are fresh doubts over over the case due to the autopsy findings that revealed her death was a homicide. The findings of the report showed that she was choked to death. Damor’s mutilated body was found near the rail track over three years’ ago. The police had earlier concluded her death was a suicide. The post-mortem was done by a three-member panel. Nail marks on her face and neck indicated that her death was due to gagging. “Such deaths are never accidental or suicidal, they are only homicidal," said Dr BB Purohit who was part of the panel that conducted the post-mortem. Strangely, no human rights violation has been noticed the 40-odd deaths. Even if they were taken to be guilty without any court verdict, they never got any attention or assistance from any organisation. The court might also decide to look afresh at all death cases so far, particularly those which have been passed off as ‘unnatural’ earlier.