FILE photo: Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan
After embattled Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan asked for the CBI to take over the probe into the Vyapam or jobs scandal, the Madhya Pradesh High Court has refused his request.
The judges said they cannot take a decision because the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a clutch of petitions tomorrow that ask for the inquiry to be reassigned from the state police to the CBI.
The Vyapam scam saw lakhs of people paying bribes in return for jobs on the state payroll or for places in educational institutes.
The opposition Congress and activists who have been acknowledged as whistle-blowers in the Vyapam scam have alleged that the current investigation cannot be fair because it is entrusted to a Special Task Force of the Madhya Pradesh police. The probe has been monitored since 2013 by the state's high court, which has rejected earlier calls for the CBI's involvement.
The sudden death of a television journalist on Saturday while reporting on the scandal pushed the scam into the ring of heavyweight national controversies; three days later, the Chief Minister, who had resisted a CBI investigation, said he had changed his mind "to honour public sentiment". The Opposition alleges that more than 30 people who were linked to the scandal, including some witnesses and accused, have died in the last few years.