VYAPAM SCAM: Still in search of the mastermind

This past year was expected to be crucial for moving ahead with the corruption charges involving the Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board (MPPEB), popularly known as Vyapam. The CBI did file two chargesheets naming a staggering 1,082 accused – but it is yet to name the mastermind of the entire scam.

More importantly, the central investigative agency has given a clean chit to Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

It has now been four years since the matter came to light and the CBI has been proving it for the past two years. The scam involved 13 different exams conducted for selecting medical students and state government employees (including food inspectors, transport constables, police personnel, school teachers, dairy supply officers and forest guards) in which the final results were rigged.

“If the mastermind of the Vyapam corruption is not known, then how are the other accused going to be punished? On the contrary, the rest of the accused are also getting bailed out of jail due to the lethargic attitude of the CBI. The CBI chargesheet is so irrelevant that nobody can be punished on its basis,” veteran lawyer Anand Mohan Mathur told IANS.

Holding that Vyapam is one of the biggest corruption cases in the country, Mathur said the CBI, which was mandated by the Supreme Court to probe the issue, was only going through the paces halfheartedly. He noted that when there is a corruption allegation in a bank, its manager is charged; but in this case, there are no charges against those occupying top positions.

The question that arises, he said, is how did Vyapam become so big a scam without a mastermind?

More than 2,000 accused have been arrested in the case and a little over 400 are still at large – as is the mastermind.