CBI arrests ex-Orissa HC judge, five others
NEWDELHI: Moretroubleisinstore for former Orissa high court judgeIMQuddusiandhisalleged associate Bhawana Pandey, arrestedbytheCBIinconnection with a medical admission scam.
The agency has decided to expand its probe against the duo to see if they were involved in othersimilarcasesofcorruption.
“Duringsearchesatresidence of Quddusi and Pandey, CBI sleuth found some documents which indicate they may be involved in other instances of ‘settling’ matters. It seems they wereactiveinothergovernment departments too,” said a source. Quddusi was a judge of Odisha HC between 2004 and 2010.
According to a CBI FIR, Quddusi and Pandey assured representatives of Prasad Education Trust, which runs LucknowbasedPrasadInstituteofMedical Sciences, that they would get their “matter settled” in the SC using their contacts. The Lucknow-based medical institute is among 46 colleges barred by the governmentfromadmittingstudentsforthenextfewyearsdueto “sub-standard facilities and non- fulfilment of required criteria”.
Accordingly, the duo got in touch with one Biswanath Agrawala from Bhubaneswar, whoclaimedtobeinclosecontact with senior relevant public functionaries. Besides Quddusi and Pandey,fourmoreaccusedwere arrestedbytheCBI—Agrawala, two representatives of the trust, BPYadavandPalashYadav,and an alleged hawala dealer named Ramdev Saraswat.
The CBI also recovered ₹1 crore from Agrawala, soon after hegotthemoneyfromthealleged hawala dealer in Chandni Chownk area of the city.
SConAugust1thisyeargavea combined order on the petitions ofPrasadinstituteandothersuch petitioners, asking the government to take a fresh look into the cases. Following the directive, the government gave a hearing anddecidedonAugust10todebar it from admitting fresh students for 2017-18 and 2018-19. It also askedMedicalCouncilofIndiato encash its bank guarantee of ₹2 crore. According to the CBI FIR, after the government’s decision, BP Yadav got in touch with Quddusi and Pandey and “entered into a criminal conspiracy to get the matter settled”.