What is Vyapam Scam? What Are Its Implications?
July 11, 2015
Published in elections.in (http://www.elections.in/blog/what-is-vyapam-scam-and-what-are-its-implications/)
I am reminded of a Bollywood blockbuster where it took a mega star, that too in a disguise of a superhero, to ensure the safety of a key witness till she was produced before the judge for her testimonial against a dreaded criminal who had politicians and top police officials under his control! In the 1988 flick, a dishonest police inspector was compelled to employ the invincible and mysterious Shahenshah to get to the criminals because an ordinary police inspector was simply ‘incapable’ of cracking such nuts!
Films mirror society. Security of the witnesses has been an issue for quite long. Shahenshah is just one such example as there is a long list of such films on the topic. Yet, it won’t be an exaggeration to say that the real life stories of threats to witnesses are more dramatic than the reel life!
Nearly 50 witnesses, accused and whistleblowers in the latest Vyapam scam have died. The scam, which originated in Madhya Pradesh, has now spread to Chhattisgarh. It only takes the issue to scary levels calling for immediate correction in our jurisprudence system. (A news report quoting Chandresh Bhushan, chief of the Special Investigation Team formed by the MP High Court, says that over 40 deaths related to Vyapam have taken place including 25 deaths related to those cases that the SIT is probing. Bhushan was quoted as saying in the report that the possibility of murder could not be ruled out in these 25 cases, and that these will be probed and a full report submitted to the High Court).
Previous Instances of Unnatural Deaths of Witnesses
There were many high-profile cases where witnesses met unnatural death or turned hostile. It is no coincidence that many such cases involved top politicians and those cases exposed the sheer disregard that these law makers have for the law of the land. We remember the cement scam of the 1980s where the then sitting chief minister of Maharashtra, AR Antulay, was indicted by the High Court. Antulay appealed in the Supreme Court and was finally exonerated. The main respondent in the case filed by Antulay, RamdasNaik – who was the president of Mumbai unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party – was shot dead in broad daylight. Although his death was linked to his failed deals with Mumbai’s Underworld, Naik was also a petitioner against Antulay in the cement scam in the Bombay High Court.
There are ample instances of witnesses turning hostile during trials in the infamous Gujarat riots of 2002. Figures suggest that at least 109 witnesses had turned hostile and retracted their statements during the trial. It may be mentioned that even the name of the then Chief Minister NarendraModi was dragged as a perpetrator.
In 2010, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal was let off in a cheating and disproportionate assets case as witnesses had turned hostile. In its order, the court had then observed that the Deputy Inspector General of Police had not discharged his duties in a proper manner and failed to conduct the investigations satisfactorily!
The fodder scam, wherein the former Bihar Chief Minister and the Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo LaluYadav was finally convicted, is yet another example. Within the first couple of years since the fodder scam first surfaced in January 1996, seven persons connected with the scam had died an unnatural death. Reports suggest that more than a dozen people associated with the fodder scam died unnaturally. A Hindustan Times report published on 9 July 2015 referred to these unnatural deaths in the fodder scam: “Union Minister Chandra Deo Prasad Verma died of shock; a state minister stabbed himself to death; four suppliers died in jail while another one was run over by a train at Dhanbad railway station; and one more accused supplier fled from a courtroom and jumped off a high-rise building in Kolkata. Five employees of the animal husbandry department died, most of them run over by trucks, while a petitioner was shot dead in Ranchi.”
Similarly, the National Rural Health Mission Scam (2005-2011) in Uttar Pradesh left a bloody trail as many associated with the scam were either killed or died mysteriously. The probe is still on in the case.
The Worrying Factors in Vyapam Scam
Obviously, the Vyapam scam has many precursors. Yet, the atrocious handling of the scam by the state authorities and the needle of suspicion pointing at the Madhya Pradesh Governor Ram NareshYadav (a former Janata Party chief minister of Uttar Pradesh and ex-Congressman) and the Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan take this scam to a frightening level where the gentry could well lose faith in the law-enforcing machinery of the state.
It is a scam in which an FIR was lodged against a governor and his son; it is a scam in which the state governor’s son died mysteriously and even the autopsy couldn’t ascertain the reason of his death! It is a scam where one of the accused was a direct appointee of the Chief Minister, who favoured him even as the former did not have the required qualification; it is a scam where a sitting Union Minister in PM NarendraModi’s cabinet, Uma Bharti, apprehends threats to her life; It is a scam where an investigative journalist of a prominent television channel dies mysteriously while interviewing a victim.
This is a dangerous situation with dreadful implications.
It may be mentioned that Vyapam is the short form of VyavsayikParikshaMandal that conducts recruitment examinations for different state-level posts, which are not filled through the Public Service Commission. These also include Pre-Medical as well as Pre-Engineering Entrance Tests and other entrance tests for colleges run by the state government. The Vyapam scam pertains to irregularities in the selection process for government jobs conducted by MPPEB.
The Genesis of Vyapam Scam
One of the first complaints with regard to fake admissions by Vyapam was registered way back in 2000. However, it was only by 2007, when the Madhya Pradesh Local Fund Audit office conducted an audit for 2007-08 to find alleged financial and administrative irregularities including unauthorised disposal of application forms worth crores of rupees by the MPPEB that the scam emerged as a large-scale professional racket. Yet, it took another six years for the authorities to act, particularly, after an Indore-based RTI activist Dr.AnandRai filed a Public Interest Litigation indicating corruption in VYAPAM that prompted the MP High Court order a special investigation in July 2013.
Arrests Made so Far
What followed was simply mind-boggling as names of big businessmen as well as prominent politicians cropped up as accomplices in the scam. It has turned out to be the only scam in the history of India where close to 2000 accused have been taken into custody by the Special Task Force. Still, 500 accused are said to be absconding! These arrests include students, parents and some middlemen, as well as political bigwigs such as the state’s former education minister Laxmikant Sharma and Mining industrialist and BJP supporter Sudhir Sharma besides MPPEB’s exam controller PankajTrivedi, MPPEB’s system analysts Nitin Mahendra and Ajay Sen and state PMT’s examination in-charge C. K. Mishra.
Crisis Situation for BJP
The Opposition Congress party has also brought up the names of MP CM ShivrajChouhan and his wife in the scam and their culpability is under scrutiny. In fact, the main whistleblower’s excel sheet (as alleged) finds a mention of Chouhan.
It is after much brouhaha and a spree of deaths (including the recent death of a police constable who had faced investigations four months ago and the dean of a Jabalpur medical college) linked to Vyapam Scam that the issue has now snowballed into a major crisis for the BJP government both at MP and at the Centre. After much reluctance and initial opposition, Chouhan finally ceded to the Opposition’s demand for a probe by the CBI in the entire case. On 9 July this year, the Supreme Court, too, asked the CBI to probe the deaths of the accused and witnesses of the Vyapam case.
Can CBI Prove Effective?
But can the CBI unfold the mystery behind these deaths and expose the main perpetrators? Naysayers are already sceptical about such a prospect and they base their arguments on the following grounds:
- The CBI probe into the Saradha scam in West Bengal has led to nowhere as yet. The prospects look bleak, especially after a new found bonhomie between the BJP and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, whose name was dragged into the Saradha scam! (It goes without saying that the BJP needs the TMC support in the Rajya Sabha, where it lacks majority).
- The CBI still hasn’t responded or challenged a December 2014 decision of the court to acquit BJP President Amit Shah in the Soharabuddin fake encounter case, when Shah was a junior home minister in the then Gujarat chief NarendraModi’s ministry. This is despite the fact that it was the CBI, which had pressed charges against Shah.
Vyapam indeed is one case which needs an impartial probe to restore the faith of the people in our institutions, once again!
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