Vyapam: SC cancels admission of over 600 MBBS students
The Supreme Court upheld the cancellation of admissions of 634 students who were found to have fraudulently got MBBS seats under the Vyapam scam. The students had joined the course between 2008 and 2013. CJI Justice JS Khehar headed the bench that upheld the cancellation of their admissions. The cancellations were done after the MP Professional Examination Board carried out internal investigations.
Madhya Pradesh Medical Education Department, Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board (MPPEB) and Medical Council of India were furnished notices by the MP High Court in relation with the MPPMT (pre-medical test) impersonation racket. The notices were issued following PIL filed by parents claiming that 300 ineligible candidates secured to get into the merit list. Dr. Jagdish Sagar and MPPEB employees were the prime accused.
Vyapam is a Hindi acronym for the state board which holds exams for engineering, medical colleges and for government jobs. Candidates bribed bureaucrats and politicians who let imposters take the recruitment exams.
The sheer magnitude of this scam is humongous with implications on the life of every MP student passing out from 2008-2013 (nearly 39 lakh students have appeared in exams conducted by Vyapam since 2008). The scam has alleged involvement of BJP ministers, MLAs, Sangh Parivar, Raj Bhawan staff too. The CM's wife Sadhna Singh too has been accused of being involved.
Dr. Arun Sharma, the Dean of medical college in Jabalpur was found dead in a Delhi hotel. Sharma was helping the Special Task Force which is investigating the Vyapam scam by furnishing documents of the examinees in the medical college he headed. His predecessor DK Sakalle who was heading the probe before him, had died a year back of burn injuries under suspicious circumstances.
Constable Ramakant Pandey who had been questioned 4 months ago due to links with Vyapam scam was found dead, hanging from a ceiling fan on 7 July. The police however have denied the links because the deceased was alcoholic and clinically depressed. Pandey's death comes 24 hrs after the body of Anamika Kushwaha, trainee sub-inspector was found in Sagar near the Police Academy headquarters.
After the series of deaths, Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan gave in to the mounting public pressure and asked for a CBI investigation of the pot-boiler examination scam. The Vyapam scam has significantly dented the BJP government's image with people involved dying mysteriously. This move on the CM's part is seen as a step to deflate the opposition's campaign for Chouhan's resignation.
The official figure of unnatural deaths in this case stands at 24, while the unofficial figure is as high as 44. Most of the dead are between the ages of 25-30.
In a joint operation with the CBI, the UP Special Task Force arrested Ramesh Shivhare, one of the prime accused in the Vyapam scam, from Kanpur. Ramesh Shivhare had been absconding till now. Shivhare had allegedly acted as a middleman and provided impostors and counterfeit candidates to perform in the examination carried out by Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board for a certain amount.
CBI aided by US FBI's facial recognition software has been able to track "125-plus men and women who helped medical aspirants pass the MP Pre Medical Test (MPPMT) to get admission into medical colleges in MP between 2008 and 2013." CBI claimed that 75 of these people have been probed in Rajasthan, Bihar and UP. It had earlier declared Rs.10,000 bounty for the impersonators.
