Shivraj Singh Chouhan not named in Vyapam chargesheet

New Delhi: In a major relief to Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the CBI on Tuesday informed the special court in Bhopal, hearing the multi-crore Vyapam scam related cases that “allegations that the hard disks and pen drives recovered from the main accused in the scam were tampered with are unfounded”.

The central probe agency in its chargesheet filed before the court said that “the allegations levelled by Vyapam scam whistle-blower Prashant Pandey and senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh were baseless”, sources said. Senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh had alleged that Mr Chouhan was involved in the scam, along with his family members, and alleged that crucial pieces of evidence, including hard disks and pen drives, were tampered with to protect them. Both had alleged that the hard disks and pen drives seized by Indore Police on July 18, 2013 from the computer of an accused had been tampered with. Mr Pandey had given the submission in the Delhi high court while Digvijay Singh had approached the Supreme Court which had handed over the matter to the CBI. The two, in separate pleas, they had alleged the word “CM” was mentioned 48 times in an excel file stored on the hard disks which was either replaced or deleted”. “The seized documents, hard disks and the pen drives given by Prashant Pandey were sent to the Central Forensic Science Laboratory in Hyderabad for scrutiny and the report suggested no tampering. A detailed forensic analysis revealed that there was no file carrying the word CM ever stored on it,” said the agency in its probe report.

The chargesheet filed by the CBI in connection with the pre-medical test for the year 2013 has listed 490 accused. The CBI has alleged in the chargesheet that racketeers arranged solvers for MBBS aspirants. With the help of Vyapam officials, the records were manipulated in such a way that roll numbers of candidates are immediately behind the “solver”. This was code-named “engine-bogey-arrangement” with the candidate being the bogey and the solver being the “engine”, it alleged. The solvers were either MBBS students or bright medical aspirants studying in coaching classes in neighbouring states, said the agency. The agency managed to identify 42 solvers. Based on its analysis, 61 “engine and bogey students” were named accused for the first time.