Vyapam scam: Whistleblowers move Supreme Court, seek CBI probe into deaths

NEW DELHI: Two key whistleblowers in the Vyapam scam in Madhya Pradesh approached the Supreme Court on Tuesday, seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation ( CBI) investigation into mysterious deaths of witnesses in the case.

Anand Rai and Ashish Chaturvedi asked the court to direct the agency to register an FIR and investigate the “deaths of more than 40 persons”.

They have also sought a CBI inquiry into what they called an yet another Vyapam like, and possibly even bigger, scam in Madhya Pradesh: allegedly illegal admissions to a range of dental and medical state quota seats in private medical colleges through the state’s Dental and Medical Admission Test (DMAT) exam.

Meanwhile, with another witness related to the Vyapam admissions and recruitment scam dying in mysterious circumstances this week, the heat is turning on the state government. Vyapam has also opened a political battlefield for Chief Minister Shiv Raj Singh Chouhan with the Congress pointing fingers directly at his office.



Anand Rai, who was the first to ring the alarm bells on the Vyapam scam leading to the first police investigation starting in 2013, confirmed to ETthat he has filed a writ petition before the Supreme Court. “We are also concerned about our own security and safety now,” he said.

He said in the petition they have also alerted about the scale of another admission scam in Madhya Pradesh where crores have been exchanged. “From 2010 to 2013, thousands of crores of black money has been transacted for wrongly filling seats through medical and dental examinations. We have argued that it has been a nexus between politicians, bureaucrats and the judiciary- many of their own children got admissions through these,” Rai said.

The Madhya Pradesh government has rubbished reports of Vyapam-related deaths. The state government said in a statement issued this week that these figures were “far beyond the actual truth”.