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Bhopal: The Central Bureau of Investigation on Thursday (23 November 2017) filed a chargesheet in the Designated Court here against 592 accused persons including 4 Vyapam officials; 3 racketeers; 22 middlemen; 334 Solvers and Beneficiary candidates; 155 guardians of Beneficiary candidates; 46 Invigilators; 2 former officers of the Department of Medical Education, Madhya Pradesh including the then Director; and 26 officials of the 4 Private Medical Colleges based at Bhopal & Indore including Chairmen of the private Medical Colleges.

CBI had registered the case on the Orders of Supreme Court of India passed on 9 July 2015 in response to Writ Petition (Civil) No. 417/2015 along with various other petitions, transferring the investigation of Vyapam Scam Cases to CBI.

CBI took over the investigation of FIR No. 12/2013 earlier registered by STF, Bhopal U/s 420, 467, 468, 471,120 B of IPC, 65/66 of IT Act, 4/3 (D) 1,(2) of MP Recognized Examination Act, 1937 against 11 accused persons including 4 officials of VYAPAM relating to irregularities in Pre Medical Test 2012 conducted by MP Professional Examination Board (Vyapam).
During the investigation, it was discovered that some racketeers along with their accomplices were allegedly arranging Solvers for Beneficiary candidates in the said Examination. The pairing of respective Solvers-Beneficiaries was being done by the racketeers by getting the roll numbers of these Solvers-Beneficiary candidates manipulated through Vyapam officials, such that a Beneficiary candidate was seated right behind his Solver. This enabled the Beneficiary to cheat and copy the answers from Solver. The CBI investigation also unraveled further conspiracy in the case including the complicity of Public Servants of Department of Medical Education, Government of MP and also Management as well as College Level Admission Committee of 4 Private Medical Colleges based at Bhopal and Indore.

It was further alleged that the examination was conducted on 10 June, 2012 and thereafter, result of the examination was sent to the Director, Medical Education, Government of MP by VYAPAM for counselling and allotment of successful candidates to various medical colleges which was done from 17 July 2012. DME roped in MPONLINE Ltd. for conducting 1st round of counselling and online seat allotment whereas the 2nd round of counselling, which was done only for admission against a limited number of vacant seats, was offline and was conducted from 20 September 2012 to 25 September 2012.

After the PMT 2012 results were declared, Solver candidates were encouraged by the middlemen/ racketeer, in conspiracy with the accused officials of the 4 Private Medical Colleges to opt for these 4 colleges during the counseling for PMT 2012. Since these Solver candidates had obtained high ranks in the examination, they easily got allocated to these Private Medical Colleges during counselling. It was also alleged that after allotment of the MBBS seat from State quota in the 4 Private Medical Colleges, these Solver candidates did not take actual admission in these colleges. The college administration and the college admission committee of these 4 Private Medical Colleges allegedly gave false information to DME that these students had taken admission in the college. This was done to block the State quota seats so that further counselling of successful candidates who were next in the waiting list was not done. The Solver students who after counselling had been allocated to these 4 Private Medical Colleges were allegedly given monetary payments through middlemen for vacating the seats. Thereafter, these Private Medical College authorities admitted students of their own choice from 28 to 30 September 2012 without following the due process. Majority of the students who were admitted had not even taken PMT Exam. The DME in connivance with these Private Medical Colleges did not ever cross-check the information being provided by these private colleges and on the contrary aided and abetted them in legitimizing the illegal admissions against State Quota seats in these colleges. The DME forwarded for enrollment the names of illegally admitted students to the concerned Universities to which the private Medical colleges are affiliated.

It was further alleged that right from the first step i.e. filling of Application Form for PMT 2012 till the admission of Solver candidates falsely being reported by the 4 Private Medical Colleges, at almost all intermediate stages the accused persons had acted in furtherance of criminal conspiracy. The Application Forms of Solver candidates were filled by accused middlemen by providing fake and common details of addresses, mobile numbers, email IDs, etc.; the payment of the application fee was made collectively for a group of Solver candidates by the middlemen through kiosk/cyber cafes; the accused Solver candidates stayed with the help of middlemen in cities of examination and appeared in the PMT 2012 examination with the Beneficiary candidates.

When CBI took over investigation of this case, 145 accused persons were either unidentified or untraced. Majority of such accused persons were Solver candidates who in connivance with accused middlemen had given wrong addresses on their Application Forms and were thus, not traceable. Identifying such persons with their names and photographs without any other detail being available was a stupendous task for CBI. CBI used various innovative techniques to identify such accused persons. During the course of investigation, CBI had discerned that these Solver candidates were amongst the medical college students or bright medical aspirants taking coaching in the States of MP, UP, Bihar, Delhi, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Maharashtra. Painstakingly, CBI collected pertinent details of students of various medical colleges and coaching institutes spread all over these States, and succeeded in preparing a database of more than 10 lakh (approx) such students.

CBI had also found the role of two other officials who were responsible for non-compliance of directive of the Court regarding counselling for MBBS admissions and has recommended departmental action against them.

Further investigation in the case is continuing. Those named in the charge sheet are S.N. Vijaywargiya of People’s Medical College; Ajay Goenka of Chirayu Medical College, J. N. Choksey, chairman of L. N. Medical College; and Suresh Singh Bhadoriya of Index Medical College.

CBI had earlier (on 31 October 2017) filed a chargesheet against 490 accused persons in a case relating to alleged irregularities in PMT-2013 Examination conducted by Vyapam in the Court of Special Judge for Vyapam Cases, Bhopal.