CBI clean chit to Shivraj Singh Chouhan; charges filed against 490

NEW DELHI: The Central Bureau of Investigation filed charges against 490 people in the Vyapam recruitment and appointment scam in Madhya Pradesh, even as it ruled out any tampering with evidence in the case as alleged by former chief minister Digvijaya Singh.

The agency plans to file charges against 12 more in a juvenile court.

The chargesheet filed in a special CBI court in Bhopal on Tuesday gives a clean chit to MP chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, whose name was dragged into the case by Digvijaya Singh.

The CBI said the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) in Hyderabad had examined the CDs that purportedly suggested tampering of evidence, but found no proof of any such act.

Congress in 2015 claimed that it had obtained the original excel sheet of the Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board results drawn from the hard disk of an examination collector. The excel sheet allegedly showed the chief minister having recommended several candidates.

Digvijaya Singh alleged that the document was later tampered with to replace the CM’s name with that of senior leader Uma Bharati, the ex-governor and some ministers.

In August, the Supreme Court directed the CBI to file the chargesheet in the trial court, along with the CFSL report on electronic evidence collected during investigation.

According to the CFSL report, a pen drive submitted to the Delhi high court and CBI by a person alleging tampering contained “false documents created subsequent to seizure” of the hard disk.

According to the chargesheet, the agency could not trace several accused as they had provided wrong addresses or were no longer living at the addresses given on their application forms for the tests.