SC gives STF 4 months to finish probe in Vyapam scam

Youth Congress members holding a protest at Madhya Pradesh Assembly in Bhopal onWednesday over MP Professional Examination Board Scam and amendments in Land Acquisition Act by Narendra Modi’s government. (Source: PTI Photo)

The Supreme Court on Monday asked a Special Task Force (STF) to complete by July 15 its investigation into the Vyapam (Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board) scam.

A bench headed by Chief Justice H L Dattu turned down a plea to grant six months’ additional time for completing the probe and said that the investigation into all the cases should be completed within four months, starting March 15.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, who appeared for petitioner Ajay Dubey demanding a CBI probe into the matter, pointed out that certain documents made public by a whistleblower had disclosed that names of prominent persons, including the state CM, which were deliberately removed from the chargesheets.

The bench, however, refrained from commenting on the issue, underlining that the probe by the STF was already being monitored by the High Court and hence no interference was called for at this juncture.

Meanwhile, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, who appeared for the state government and the STF, informed the bench that out of the total 55 FIRs in the matter, seven were related to “high profile” persons. “Twenty-six chargesheets have been filed and we need additional time to file the chargesheets in the remaining cases. A total of 1,887 persons have been arrested so far and more than 700 persons are yet to be nabbed,” he added. Sibal, however, claimed that most of the people arrested were students and their parents.

‘Get FIR filed against CM Shivraj’

New Delhi: The Congress Monday reiterated its demand for a CBI probe into the ‘Vyapam’ scam in the Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board by drawing parallels with the decision of the Congress government in Karnataka to hand over the probe into IAS officer D K Ravi’s death to the central investigating agency following demands made by the local Opposition parties.

Also referring to an excel-sheet containing names of people allegedly linked to the scam, Digvijaya Singh in a letter to the chairman of the Special Investigation Team wrote that he had received the “original” excel-sheet based on the computer hard disk of Nitin Mohindra, the main accused in the scam, and got it verified from a reputed lab.

He said the lab report confirms that Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan appeared in 48 places in the “original” excel-sheet that were deleted and the names of other persons, including Uma Bharati, were substituted after “tampering” the sheet. “My request to the Prime Minister is to please get an FIR registered against CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan,” Singh added. ENS

Source:: Indian Express