Vyapam case: CBI seeks action against over 200 med students

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New Delhi: The future of over 200 students, who took admission in four private medical colleges of Madhya Pradesh through management quota on a hefty payment, might hang in the balance after a CBI probe into a Vyapam case claimed irregularities in their selection, officials said.

The probe agency had written to the Madhya Pradesh government, seeking necessary action against these candidates, who did not appear in any entrance exam for admission in the medical colleges, they added.

The move was based on a probe conducted by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the Pre-Medical Test (PMT), conducted by the Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board (Vyapam in Hindi) in 2012, the officials said.

On Thursday, the agency filed a chargesheet in a special CBI court in Bhopal against 592 accused, including the chairmen of the four private medical colleges, for their alleged involvement in the recruitment scam.

The promoters were -- J N Choksey, chairman of the L N Medical College; S N Vijaywargiya of the People's Medical College; Ajay Goenka of the Chirayu Medical College (all in Bhopal) and Suresh Singh Bhadoriya of the Index Medical College, Indore, the officials said.

While three promoters did not comment when contacted by PTI, Bhadoriya claimed that neither his nor his college's name was mentioned in the CBI chargesheet.

A total of 229 admissions were made by these four colleges under the management quota, by charging an amount between Rs 50 lakh and Rs 1 crore per seat, allegedly in violation of norms, the CBI officials said.

What was worrying was that the students who got admission through the management quota did not appear in any entrance exam, they added.

Of the 229 of such admissions, 88 were in the Index Medical College, 54 in the Chirayu Medical College, 46 in the People's Medical College and 41 in the L N Medical College, the officials said.

These admissions were done allegedly in connivance with the officials of the Vyapam, which has since been renamed as the Professional Examination Board, officials of the medical education department of the Madhya Pradesh government and some middlemen, they added.

Explaining the modus operandi, the officials said the middlemen followed an "engine-bogey" system for the pairing of candidates.

Under this arrangement, a bright candidate (who had already taken coaching classes to prepare for the entrance test and was well-versed with the examination pattern) would be alloted a roll number just ahead of a not-so-bright aspirant, so that the latter could cheat from him, they added.

The bright candidate would act as the "engine" and the other student as the "bogey", the officials said.

The middlemen charged anything between Rs 15 and 20 lakh for this pairing, they added.

Elaborating further, the officials said on the basis of successful selection, the bright students would then take admission only in the four medical colleges named in the chargesheet, despite their names featuring in the merit list and hence, they being eligible for admission in government institutions.

These successful candidates, in connivance with the middlemen and office-bearers of private medical colleges, would later withdraw their admission, they said.

Instead of reporting these vacancies to the state government department concerned, the college authorities would fill these seats through the management quota, charging a hefty amount, the officials said.
Among those named in the chargesheet, 334 were "engine- bogey" candidates, 155 were the guardians of these candidates, 46 invigilators of the examination, 26 officials of the four private medical colleges, 22 middlemen, four former Vyapam officials and two officers of the department of medical education, Madhya Pradesh, they added.

The state government officials named in the chargesheet were S C Tiwari, the then director, and N M Srivastava, the then joint director in the medical education department, the officials said.

The four former Vyapam officials named in the chargesheet were the then director Pankaj Trivedi, then senior system analyst Nitin Mohindra, then deputy analyst Ajay Kumar Sen and the then programmer C K Mishra, they added.

In the CBI chargesheet, 245 people have been named as accused for the first time. The others were named in different chargesheets filed earlier by the central probe agency.

The CBI is looking into the several cases of alleged massive irregularities in various examinations conducted by the Vyapam to select candidates for medical colleges and also for state government jobs.