BHOPAL: Almost five years after the Supreme Court asked CBI to take over the Vyapam scam probe from Madhya Pradesh police, the central invstigating agency is all set to wind up its investigation. CBI has filed 155 chargesheets against over 3,500 people, but the whistleblowers have termed the probe ‘disappointing’.
Investigation is pending against 300 people in the pre-medical test-2013 and PMT-2012 cases, where some influential people are among the accused, say officials. “We have got clearance to file chargesheets in three cases in which investigations have been completed. Only two cases are pending,” said a CBI officer.
When the agency took over probe from the MP STF on July 13, 2015, opposition parties and whistleblowers had expected swift action. Initially, a 40-member team was formed by the CBI director. It wasn’t long before some officers began asking to be sent back to their parent posting, claiming that it would take two decades to get to the bottom of India’s biggest recruitment scam.
Even when the Vyapam branch — constituted by shifting two anti-corruption (AC) branches — was constituted, few officers had shown interest to join it, say sources. CBI had to eventually hand-pick officers from various branches and send them to Bhopal. “The branch started with around 170 officers. Now, other cases are also being assigned to the Vyapam branch,” said another officer.
The branch handed 155 criminal cases and 15 inquiries with the Supreme Court order on July 9, 2015, which included many mysterious deaths related to the scam. However, CBI’s findings were no different from what police probe had found.
“We were happy when SC shifted the probe to CBI, but the end results are very disappointing. CBI is not looking into complaints we have made against the high and mighty involved in the scam,” said Gwalior-based Ashish Chaturvedi, a whistle-blower. Dr Anand Rai, another whistleblower, agreed. “Have they brought any big name on their records?” he said.
As if the Vyapam scam itself wasn’t complicated enough, CBI had run into a language barrier also. More than 100 of the accused demanded copies of the chargesheet against them in Hindi, leaving the agency stumped. CBI had then moved a special leave petition in Supreme Court, seeking reversal of earlier orders by Gwalior bench of MP high court and some lower courts to provide the accused chargesheets in Hindi.