SCAMS IN INDIA
SCAMS IN INDIA
CONCEPTS & EXTRACTS IN HINDUISM
By :: Pt. Santosh Bhardwaj
dharmvidya.wordpress.com hindutv.wordpress.com santoshhastrekhashastr.wordpress.com bhagwatkathamrat.wordpress.com jagatgurusantosh.wordpress.com
santoshkipathshala.blogspot.com santoshsuvichar.blogspot.com santoshkathasagar.blogspot.com bhartiyshiksha.blogspot.com santoshhindukosh.blogspot.com
ॐ गं गणपतये नम:।अक्षरं परमं ब्रह्म ज्योतीरूपं सनातनम्।
निराकारं स्वेच्छामयमनन्तजम्॥
कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन।
मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भुर्मा ते संगोऽस्त्वकर्मणि॥
[श्रीमद्भगवद्गीता 2.47]
ॐ FAKE INDIAN CURRENCY :: एक ही नम्बर के दोनों असली नोटों पर अलग अलग गवर्नरों के दस्तखत हैं एक पर सुब्बाराव और दूसरे पर रेड्डी के; ये कैसे संम्भव हुआ!?ये है चिदम्बरम के समय का सबसे बड़ा घोटाला, जिसमें पूरा ग़ाँधी परिवार और लगभग सभी काँग्रेसियों RBI के गवर्नर की अहम भागीदारी की निष्पक्ष जाँच जरूरी है।
विकिलीक्स ने स्विश बैंकों में कालाधन रखने वाले भारतीयों की पहली सूची जारी की है। स्विस बैंकों ने भी एक गुप्त सूची सरकार को सौंपी है। प्रथम 24 नाम इस प्रकार से है :-(राशियाँ US$ डाॅलर में हैं )
(1). सोनिया गाँधी (56,80,00,00,00,00,00,00,000)
(2). ए राजा (780000000000)
3 - राहुल गांधी (15800000000000)
4 - शरद पवार (8200000000000)
5 - पी चितम्बरम (150400000000000000)
6 - दिग्विजय सिंह (2890000000000)
7 - अहमद पटेल (900000000000)
8 - जय ललिता (1500000000000)
9 - हरीश रावत (7500000000000)
10 - कपिल सिब्बल (2800000000000)
11 - सुरेश कलमाड़ी (590000000000)
12 - अशोक गहलोत (22000000000000)
13 - अशोक चौहान (7688800000000)
14- श्याम कंपलि (58211400000000)
15- राजीव गांधी(1980000000000)
16- हर्शद मेहता (13580000000000)
17- केतन पारेख(820000000000)
18- एच डी कुमारस्वामी(1450000000000)
19- लालू प्रसाद यादव (2890000000000)
20 - जे एम सिंधिया (900000000000)
21-कलनिधिमरन (1500000000000)
22- करुणानिधि (3500000000000)
23- सुरेश कलमाड़ी (590000000000)
24- राज फाउंडेशन(18900800000000)
FAKE DEGREES: ED attached propertied worth over Rs. 500 crore belonging to Rai Foundation. These properties include university campuses in Bangalore, Ahmadabad and Ranchi. The case pertains to alleged sale of fake degrees by Eastern Institute of Integrated Learning in Management, Sikkim. Properties were bought in Rajasthan, Haryana, Chhatisgarh and West Bengal worth Rs. 160 crore which has a market value of more than Rs. 500 crore. There is possibility of money laundering as well.
THOSE WHO BOUGHT THE FAKE DEGREES AND GOT EMPLOYMENT ON THE BASIS OF THESE MUST BE PROSECUTED.THE SCAMSTERS MUST BE IN JAIL.
COAL SCAM: 17 fresh FIRs have been registered in coal scam under money laundering law. Big business houses, cabinet rank politicians and bureaucratises played active role in this scam.Events pin point Ex Prime Ministers as well, who too had a role to play, over the directive of his bosses. Interestingly, no one is having courage to raise finger at the real culprits, including CBI.[10.01.2015]
This proved to be the root cause of various scandals and the biggest one to rock Madhy Pradesh. Special Task Force of Madhy Pradesh police under the supervision of High Court is conducting the investigations. Enforcement Directorate under Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 booked MPPEB’s in March 2014; exam controller Pankaj Trivedi along with 25 other accused including former Madhy Pradesh higher education minister Laxmi Kant Sharma and his former officer on special duty O.P. Shukla. 720 parents and students were booked and more than 129 politicians, officials and middlemen were arrested.
Madhy Pradesh Professional Examination Board also known as Madhy Pradesh Vyavsayik Pareeksha Mandal (व्यावसायिक परीक्षा मण्डल, व्यापम-Vyapam) is a self-financed and an autonomous body incorporated by the State government. It was initially set-up in 1970 as Pre Medical Test Board to conduct entrance tests for medical courses. In 1981, Pre Engineering Board was set up to conduct entrance tests for engineering courses as well. But in 1982, both these boards were amalgamated to form Professional Examination Board.
The peculiarity of the Board lies in the fact that it is entrusted with the responsibility to conduct competitive tests for admission to various professional courses and that too on a very large scale. The website of the Board says, “It is worth mentioning that only on the basis of these test one can get admission to the courses recognized by national level bodies like All India Council for Technical Education (-AICTE), Medical Council of India (-MCI), National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) New Delhi etc. against seats available in various institutions of the state.” The power and authority of the Board can be ascertained from the fact that recently, the responsibility to conduct recruitment examinations for posts not covered by state Public Service Commission was also entrusted upon it. So, basically, admission to all professional courses and recruitment to numerous jobs are conducted by the Board.
During the year 2013, Pre-Medical Test (PMT) scam was unearthed by Dr. Anand Rai. He is an Indore based Ophthalmologist, presently working as a medical officer. In the past, he has also worked to expose frauds in clinical trials. Thousands of candidates secured admission to medical colleges in the state through unfair means like impersonation and bribery. According to Dr. Rai, this scam dates back to 2004 and the first case was reported in Khandwa, a city near Indore.
Shri Singh Kushwaha, SP (West), district Indore through letter number SP/ West/ PA/ 412/2013 dated. 19.07.2013 written from office of SP, District Indore (West), Satellite Building, Moti Tabela, Indore informed Pankaj Trivedi, Controller, MP Vyapam that case number 539/ 13 under sections 419, 420, 467, 468 had been registered in Police station Rajendr Nagar in connection with PMT 2013 exam and was under investigation. He also supplied the list of 317 suspect candidates, found from the home of the accused, to Pankaj Trivedi.
Owing to the political patronage enjoyed by him, Pankaj Trivedi, Examination controller, Vyapam was unperturbed and despite being involved neck-deep in corruption, he audaciously wrote a letter to Principal Secretary, Medical education department, Government of MP regarding PMT scam, virtually issuing instruction to his superior officer. In point number 4 of letter number MP Vyapam/4674 Bhopal dated 20.07.2013 he wrote, “In view of the above fact and the above mentioned letter of SP (West), District Indore, the fake/suspect candidates, who have found place in the merit list should be allotted seats on a provisional basis during counselling with the condition that if his or her involvement in the crime number 539/18 is proved in the course of police probe/investigation, then his or her candidature will be considered automatically cancelled”.
On July 6 and 7, Indore crime branch had arrested 20 candidates from various city hotels of whom 17 belonged to Uttar Pradesh while three were from Madhy Pradesh. The candidates had come to impersonate MPPMT candidates.
At a high level meeting held in Bhopal in July 2013, senior bureaucrats raised serious questions on the police investigation in Vyapam scam and expressed surprise over the fact that Dr. Sagar could operate so smoothly. Moreover, they were shocked to know that no tab was kept on him as he was arrested in 2003 in similar case. In the same meeting, government admitted major lapses in its working that helped the pre-medical test scam thrive.
In November 2013, the Special Task Force (-STF) of Madhy Pradesh police made a shocking revelation that Vyapam officials rigged five more recruitment tests for government jobs in the state. Different FIRs against 153 people including mining baron Sudhir Sharma were filed. Sharma, a close confidante of Chief Minister Shiv Raj Singh Chauhan, was earlier interrogated by Central Bureau of Investigation (-CBI) in connection with mining scam.
In December 2013, Special Task Force produced a supplementary charge sheet against 34 accused, running into 23,000 pages in the Indore district court. Out of these 34 accused chargesheeted, 30 were students and their guardians.
On April 29, 2014, 27 students of Mahatma Gandhi Memorial (-MGM) medical college were expelled as it was proved that they obtained admission via fraudulent means.
On June 19, 2014, Special Task Force of Madhy Pradesh police issued a statement that it has arrested over 100 students for their involvement in the scam and this number could go up as arrests are being made everyday. All these students cleared the medical entrance test through fraudulent means.
In September 2014, shocking disclosure of rigging bank exams was made by Special Task Force on the basis of interrogation of Dr. Jagdish Sagar and Mohit Chaudhary. Numerous candidates who fraudulently cleared the written examination of bank recruitment, ultimately failed to clear the interview.
MODUS OPERANDI ::
IMPERSONATION: The admission card of the candidate was used to execute the trick. All the information of the candidate remained intact except the photograph. Candidate’s photograph was replaced by that of the impersonator and after the exam, it was changed back to the original. All this was done in collusion with the corrupt Board officials. The impersonator was always some brilliant student and used to get hefty amount to secure the seat.
PASSING ON: A person was strategically seated between two other candidates by the Board officials. The person let them copy from his answer sheet and the examiners were bribed to fix it.
OMR SHEETS: The select candidates were asked to leave their answer sheets blank. They were randomly given high percentages after the exam. Concerned authorities of the Board then filed an RTI demanding to view those answer sheets. They then filled in the answers in the OMR booklet according to the marks they have already been given. This was done so that if someone were to ever check those answer sheets, there would not be any loop holes that could give them away.
Vyapam admitted in the High Court that 1020 forms were missing and 346 impostors had appeared in the examination. Vyapam officials admitted in the court that 1120 candidates appeared in the exam but their forms were missing because Vyapam official and accused Nitin Mahendr had tampered with the Computers in which the record was stored. The STF has presented charge-sheet against 28 accused, including Jagdish Sagar, in Indore Court. The fact that the charge-sheet includes details of 3292 different offences and more than 92,176 documents is indicative of the enormity of the scam.
MAIN ACCUSED-KEY ARRESTS
Laxmi Kant Sharma, ex-Education Minister (M.P): After being quizzed twice, the Bhartiy Janta Party (-BJP) leader was arrested after his alleged involvement in contractual teachers recruitment scam. The exam was conducted by MPPEB and Sharma was its Minister in-charge in his capacity as the then Technical Education Minister in the last BJP government in the state. He later resigned from BJP after he was sent to four days police remand. Later, three FIRs were filed against him in separate cases.
Dr. Vinod Bhandari: He is the main accused and was arrested on the charges of illegally helping students to get admission through Vyapam officers. He fled to Mauritius when he was named in the scam and returned only after an anticipatory bail was granted by the Madhy Pradesh High Court.
O. P. Shukla: He was posted as Officer on Special Duty (-OSD) with then Technical Education Minister Laxmi Kant Sharma. Soon after the investigations gained momentum, he went underground and surrendered two months after the investigation team released a lookout notice for him. He allegedly took 8.5 million (-85 lakhs) Rupees from the candidates for clearing the medical entrance test.
Pankaj Trivedi, Examination Controller Vyapam: He was arrested in September 2013 and is currently in a judicial custody. The state anti-corruption police has recovered around 25 million rupees and numerous properties from his possession that are unknown to his sources of income. Evidence of his partnership in Indore based medical college was also found.
Sudhir Sharma: He is the mining baron of Madhy Pradesh and an accused in the sub-inspector and constable recruitment scam. His rise from the a primary school teacher to a billionaire is surrounded by mysteries. The investigative team declared him as an absconder and declared a reward of Rs. 5000 for information about his whereabouts. After a long hide and seek, he finally surrendered on July 25, 2014.
CK Mishra, Officer, Vyapam: He has admitted that he was working for Dr. Sagar, Santosh Gupta and Sanjiv Shilpkar since 2009. In 2009, Dr. Sagar had given him application forms of 20 candidates, who were to be allotted roll numbers in such a way that in the exam, their seats were one behind the other. Rs 50,000 per roll number was paid to him. Thus, he received Rs 1 million. In 2010, Dr. Sagar gave forms of 40 students. This time Rs 2 million was paid. In 2012, Dr. Sagar took contract of 60 students, Shilpkar gave roll numbers of 20 boys. They paid Rs 3 million and Rs 1 million respectively.
Nitin Mahendra (Principal System Analyst) and Ajay Sen (Senior System Analyst): Vyapam programmer Yashwant Parnekar and clerk Yuvraj Hingve said in their statements that the computers of Mahendr and Sen were not linked with the main server of Vyapam. These two officers could access the data stored in 25 other computers at Vyapam but the data in their computers could not be accessed by anyone. Taking advantage of this, they allotted roll numbers and examination centers as per their wish.
Dr. Jagdish Sagar (Middleman): He used to handover handwritten notes to Vyapam officials, telling them which roll number to allot to which student. For the session 2013, Dr. Sagar had given 317, Shilpakar 92 and Sanjay Gupta 48 names. Mahendr had recorded the details of these candidates in his computer and destroyed the list. While allotting roll numbers to these candidates, the slots immediately before or after them were left blank. These roll numbers were then allotted to fake candidate. The roll numbers were set at their homes and brought to office in Pen drive. After reaching the office, they uploaded the roll numbers to the computers. After that Mahendr, used to telephone Dr. Sagar and tell him, “The work has been done. You can check on the website”.
Animesh Akash Singh: He worked as a broker and got admitted four candidates in PMT.
Jitendr Malviy: A third year student of MBBS at MGM College of Indore who had got admitted one candidate in PMT 2013 through Dr. Sanjeev Shilpakar.
R. K. Shivhare, Suspended IPS Officer: He is an accused for his alleged involvement in the recruitment of sub-inspector and platoon commander examination of 2012 conducted by Vyapam. He is also an accused in getting his daughter and son-in-law admitted in the medical college by fraudulent means. When the probe agency registered a case against him, he was suspended but evaded arrest. He was declared absconder and a reward or Rs. 3000 was put against him. He later surrendered on April 21, 2014.
Ravi Kant Dwivedi, Suspended Joint Commissioner (Revenue): He was arrested for getting his son admitted into one of the premiere medical colleges through unfair means. Later, the state anti-corruption wing raided his house and were in a shock to found cash, jewellery, property worth Rs. 600-700 million.
Vandana Dwivedi: On September 11, 2014, Special Task Force (STF) arrested the Bhartiy Janta Party (-BJP) leader for her role in the scam. She had given C. K. Mishra a list of five candidates for recruitment in contractual teachers (grade II) appointment out of which two were selected.
Dr. G S Khanuja: On September 13, 2014, Special Task Force (STF) arrested the COO of Aurbindo hospital located in Indore. His son secured 12th rank in the medical examination of 2012 through unfair means.
Mohit Chaudhary: He was arrested along with his gang for helping the students appearing in pre-medical test cheat with the help of blue tooth. He was earlier arrested in 2012 for rigging other competitive exams but was released on bail. He himself fraudulently cracked the post-graduate medical entrance examination conducted by the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).
Narendra Dev Azad (Jatav): On February 19, 2015, the special investigation team (SIT) arrested him on the charges of acting as a middleman in the admission of Amar Singh Medha in 2009 in MGM College, Indore.
Rashtriy Swayam Sewak Sangh (RSS): Arrested Vyapam examination controller Pankaj Tri Vedi had spelled beans that two RSS leaders were directly involved in the scam as they got their men recruited in the government job. The two RSS leaders named in the written statement are former Late RSS Chief K C Sudarshan and Suresh Soni. Police later denied the involvement of RSS leaders as they did not have the evidence to substantiate it. However, on October 13, 2014, Suresh Soni was relieved from his responsibilities and the sources in the organization said that Vyapam scam was one of the reasons for this decision, because his name raised during the investigation had caused embarrassment to the RSS.
WHISTLE BLOWER: Indore based Dr. Anand Rai and Gwalior based social activist Ashish Chaturvedi are the two main whistle blowers of this scam. While Dr. Anand Rai blew the lid over this scam, Ashish Chaturvedi blew the whistle over involvement of Chief Minister Shiv Raj Singh Chauhan’s relatives in the scam. Despite a Whistle Blower’s Protection law in force, both of them face threat to their life and were denied police protection. Ashish Chaturvedi has already suffered three attacks on his life including an abduction bid. Chaturvedi had also petitioned CBI to probe admissions of 5,000 doctors in MBBS and PG courses of 2003-2013 in all state colleges.
In July 2014, Prashant Pandey, a forensic expert became a whistle blower, when he came to know that Special Task Force relied on tampered evidence and made this information public. Later, the Madhy Pradesh police registered an FIR against him for leaking the information.He also claimed that only five percent of the scam had been probed.
This scam exposes the wider nexus of poor healthcare, corruption and central licensing powers.
Madhy Pradesh has a doctor population ratio of 1:18650 ( roughly 1:300 in Europe ). Newly qualified post graduates earn approximately 20 times the Per capita income of Madhy Pradesh and hence privileged parents are willing to plough money in education. Post graduation costs up to 400 lakh rupees ( $650,000 ) in a state recognised Private College while it is comparatively much cheaper at 75 lakhs, to 'purchase' a seat in a government run school, through the scam network.
India is the only country where sale of medical seats by private medical colleges is part of official policy. It means the ability to pay counts more than merit. The Medical Council of India, which regulated the sold medical seats, itself accused of being systemically corrupt, has both slashed medical seats and made suitability tests for students who study abroad extremely difficult, thus increasing the price of Private medical education, while education remains comparatively free in the relatively few state run colleges once the bribes have been paid.
Congress had demanded a CBI probe into the scam and expressed concern over impartial investigation but the government declined to comply with this demand. The opposition also pressed for resignation of the Chief Minister on moral grounds in view of alleged involvement of his ministers and relatives. On the other hand, the Chief Minister had termed it as “mudslinging” by the opposition due to the defeat in Lok Sabha election 2014.
The Chief Minister also vowed to take legal action against Congress leaders who leveled serious allegations on his wife but later dropped the plan on the advice of bureaucrats close to him as it may have led to another embarrassment for the government.
On November 5, 2014, Madhy Pradesh High Court rejected Digvijay Singh's petition for CBI probe and ordered setting up of a special investigation team (SIT) to act as a watchdog for the court. The court also directed the special task force (-STF) to keep a close watch on news related to the scam in electronic and print media and make relevant news a part of the investigation.The High Court of Madhy Pradesh has appointed Justice Chandresh Bhushan, Retd. Judge of the Madhy Pradesh High Court as the Chairman of the SIT along with two other members to probe the scam.
On February 16, 2015,Congress alleged that Chief Minister Shiv Raj Singh Chauhan's name was removed from a document seized from accused Nitin Mahendr's computer.The allegation was based on special investigation team's having admitted that the hard disk seized from Nitin Mahendr's computer was cloned. Congress leader Digvijay Singh said, "This affidavit is a challenge to the Madhy Pradesh Chief Minister: Either he should resign or prosecute me for giving false evidence if he thinks my allegations are wrong." However, BJP termed it as a false allegation.
On February 18, 2015, the special investigation team sought permission from Madhy Pradesh High court to probe state Governor Ram Naresh Yadav. which was subsequently granted. FIR was registered against Governor's son Shailesh Yadav as well. Congress raised this issue in Madhy Pradesh Vidhan Sabha during its budget session. For the first time in the history of Indian politics, the assembly session ended only in 6 days without discussion on the budget.
In March 2015, whistle blower Prashant Pandey submitted the original documents in Delhi High Court. He produced an excel sheet that had the name of Chief Minister of Madhy Pradesh, Shiv Raj Singh Chauhan mentioned forty eight times while the one used by the investigating agency to prepare the charge sheet had none. His excel sheet was authenticated by a private forensic lab. BJP alleged that the whistle blowers were paid off to which Pandey responded that he had initially given the documents to Madhy Pradesh minister Kailash Vijay Vargiy and sent it to Prime Minister's Office as well but no action was initiated.
40 PEOPLE INVOLVED IN THE SCAM HAVE BEEN MURDERED SO FAR, SHOWING DEEP ROOTED INVOLVEMENT OF HIGH UPS IN POWER CIRCLES.
DEATHS-MURDERS: On March 25, 2015, Shailesh Yadav, the son of Madhy Pradesh Governor Ram Naresh Yadav and an accused in the scam was found dead under mysterious circumstances.
*On April 28, 2015, Vijay Singh was found dead under mysterious circumstances in Kanker district of Chhattisgarh. A Pharmacist by profession, he was a key accused linked to several high profile people involved in the scam. His body was recovered from a lodge owned by BJP's MLA and the last call from his mobile was traced to his lawyer in Bhopal.
*Pharmacist Vijay Singh, a key accused linked to several high-profile suspects in MPPEB scam, was found dead under mysterious circumstances in Kanker district of Chhattisgarh.
The Supreme Court on Monday asked Special Task Force (STF), probing Vyapam scam in Madhy Pradesh, to complete the investigation within four months.
COAL SCAM: 17 fresh FIRs have been registered in coal scam under money laundering law. Big business houses, cabinet rank politicians and bureaucratises played active role in this scam.Events pin point Ex Prime Ministers as well, who too had a role to play, over the directive of his bosses. Interestingly, no one is having courage to raise finger at the real culprits, including CBI.[10.01.2015]
COUNTERFEIT STAMP PAPER SCAM :: Abdul Karim Telgi (born 1961) is a convicted Indian counterfeiter. He earned money by printing counterfeit stamp paper in India. He cited Sharad Pawar, then the chief of NCP party's, name in relation to a 600 billion (US$9.4 billion) stamp-paper scam.
His father was an employee of Indian Railways. His father died while he was young. He paid for his own education at Sarvoday Vidyalay-run by the Central government, an English medium school, by selling fruit and vegetables on trains. Eventually, he moved to Saudi Arabia. Seven years later, he returned to India and began a career in counterfeiting, originally focusing on fake passports.
He moved to more complex counterfeiting when he began to counterfeit stamp paper. He appointed 300 people as agents, who sold the fakes to bulk purchasers, including banks, insurance companies, and share-broking firms. The size of the scam was estimated to be more than 200 billion (US$3.1 billion). One aspect of the scandal that caused much concern was that it required the involvement of many police officers and other government employees including Nikhil Khotari. For example, one Assistant Police Investigator was found to have a net worth of over 1 billion (US$16 million), despite making a salary of only 9,000 (US$140) per month.
On 17 January 2006, Telgi and several associates were sentenced to 30 years rigorous imprisonment. On 28 June 2007, Telgi was sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for 13 years for another aspect of the scandal. He was also fined 10 billion (US$160 million). The Income Tax Department requested that Telgi's property be confiscated to pay the fine.
Speculations even said that during the scam period, fake stamp papers worth 30,000 crores were sold in more than seven states including the major ones Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. It was shameful for the central govt. because the SIT found that Telgi ‘managed’ to gain support of some key policemen and officials of India Security Press (which prints stamp papers) in running the racket.
He printed fake stamp papers worth thousands of crores of rupees using printing machines purchased illegally with the help of some conniving officials of the Central Govt.’s Security Printing Press (India Security Press) located in Nasik. These fake stamp papers penetrated in more than 12 states through a widespread network of vendors who sold the counterfeits without any fear and earned hefty commissions.
The scam broke in late 90's and the Special Investigation Team was assigned the probe job. The investigations led the SIT to the kingpin Telgi and his partners in crime which largely included policemen and high ranking police officials, politicians and govt. officials. In one of the sensational disclosures during a Narco test in Bangalore, Telgi named the then NCP (National Congress Party) leader Sharad Pawar and former Deputy Chief Minister Chhagan Bhujbal (NCP) to be involved in the scam and that he paid money to them. However, the allegations made by Telgi were refuted by both the politicians.
Some serious concerns and questions were also raised against SM Krishna Govt. of Karnataka (who appointed SIT to investigate the case), as to why such sensitive economic crime with inter-state ramifications was only handed over to SIT and not entrusted to specialized agencies like CBI for investigation.
Scamsters Implicated:
Abdul Karim Telgi: The mastermind of the scam.
Former Samajwadi Janta Party MLA Anil Gote, former Mumbai Police Commissioner R. S . Sharma, and several others including policemen, politicians and govt. officials.
Investigation & Timeline:
August 2000: Bangalore police arrested 2 possessing fake stamp and stamp paper. Abdul Karim Telgi’s name surfaces in the investigation.
November 2001: Bangalore city police arrests Telgi from Ajmer and is sent to Bangalore central prison. However, Telgi continued to run his ‘business’ from the jail.
January 2002: SM Krishna Govt. of Karnataka constitutes STAMPIT, the special investigation team to probe the stamp paper scam.
2003 to 2004: Police comes into action all over making series of arrests in the case as directed by SIT. Telgi and several others who were involved in the case as Telgi’s aide or otherwise were arrested. Those who were arrested included the following among many others:
Abdul Karim Telgi, the key accused and mastermind of the scam and his associates
Telgi’s lawyer Rasheed Kulkarni
MLA of Dhule district (Maharashtra) Anil Gote
Former labour minister of Andhra Pradesh Krishna Yadav
A number of high rank policemen like Senior Inspector of Mumbai Crime Branch; former Mumbai Police Commissioner RS Sharma; the likes of ACP, DCP, DSP; Joint Commissioner of State Intelligence etc.
Govt. officials like Deputy superintendent and superintendent of stamps and jail superintendents
And a bunch of police officials including inspectors and sub inspectors among others.
December 2003: Maharashtra govt. decides to hand over the case to CBI
February 2004: SIT claimed Telgi paid kickback of Rs. 22 lakhs to former Mumbai Police Commissioner RS Sharma
May 2004: CBI seize fake stamp papers worth 1.5 crore rupees after custodial interrogation of Telgi
August 2004: SC gave CBI 3 months to complete the probe in the scam. CBI arrested Telgi in another case pertaining to seizure of fake stamps
March 2005: CBI filed charge sheet against top police officials
July 2005: CBI filed charge sheet against 66 people including the prime accused Telgi, his wife, former Mumbai Police Commissioner RS Sharma and 2 politicians
January 2006: Special court convicted Telgi in a 1995 case of selling fake stamps; gets 10 years of rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs. 50,000
March 2006: Telgi expresses willingness to confess in all stamp paper cases
April 2006: As per an investigation report, the actual magnitude of the stamp paper scam amounts to Rs. 172 crores and not Rs. 30,000 crores as initially speculated
May 2006: Telgi informs the special court of his will to make another confessional statement alleging involvement of politicians, businessmen, doctors and police.
September 2006: Telgi, in a Narco test, names Sharad Pawar and Chhagan Bhujbal in the scam.
June 2007: Telgi gets a 13 years rigorous imprisonment with a fine of crores of rupees in one of the major cases under the scam filed by Pune Police. While, 42 other accused get rigorous imprisonment for up to 6 years and a fine.
June 2011: The special Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act court in Pune convicted 5 people including the kingpin of the scam Telgi and sentenced them to 10 more years of rigorous imprisonment in one of the stamp paper scam cases filed against him in Mumbai in 2005.
Outcome & Impact: The scam was unprecedented and so was its trial. The scam and Telgi went through fast moving, eventful investigation and legal actions after the scam broke. Nearly 50 cases were filed against Telgi, most of them went under trial. Telgi and all others involved were put behind bars and convicted by 2011. This was a rare thing in the history of slow moving litigation processes in such scams. Telgi is in jail serving his 13 plus 10 years term.
The biggest loser in the entire scenario was the nation who lost crores of rupees of revenue from stamp duty on account of sale of fake stamp papers. Besides, it affected the legal and financial transactions (in sectors like banking, insurance etc.) made during the scam period.
The Telgi scam was not the scam of clear cut political corruption or connivance. But one cannot neglect the tacit involvement of various govt. departments and institutions without the support of which the scam of high security stamps was never possible. That’s where the Congress govt. failed; it failed to keep a close check on the system such that it leaves no scope for any wrong doing.
VYAPAM SCAM व्यावसायिक परीक्षा मण्डल, व्यापम घोटाला :: Vyapam scam was a massive admission and recruitment scam involving politicians, bureaucrats-senior officials-police and businessmen. Indore Bench of Madhy Pradesh High Court served notices to Madhy Pradesh Professional Examination Board (-MPPEB) and Medical Council of India (-MCI) following a public interest litigation (-PIL) filed by parents of some students after reports that more than 300 ineligible candidates managed to get into the merit list. Complaints of irregularities and crooked deals in pre-medical test (-PMT) were surfacing since 2009 leading to unearthing of a major scam in the year 2013. Politicians from the state ruling party were alleged to have deep rooted involvement. The kingpin of the impersonation racket Dr. Jagdish Sagar, was arrested and subsequently several other influential people were arrested, including ex-Education Minister Laxmi Kant Sharma, MPPEB’s exam controller Pankaj Trivedi, MPPEB’s system analysts Nitin Mahendr and Ajay Sen and state PMT’s examination in-charge C. K. Mishra. The credit to expose the scam goes to Indore-based medical practitioner Dr. Anand Rai.
Madhy Pradesh Professional Examination Board also known as Madhy Pradesh Vyavsayik Pareeksha Mandal (व्यावसायिक परीक्षा मण्डल, व्यापम-Vyapam) is a self-financed and an autonomous body incorporated by the State government. It was initially set-up in 1970 as Pre Medical Test Board to conduct entrance tests for medical courses. In 1981, Pre Engineering Board was set up to conduct entrance tests for engineering courses as well. But in 1982, both these boards were amalgamated to form Professional Examination Board.
The peculiarity of the Board lies in the fact that it is entrusted with the responsibility to conduct competitive tests for admission to various professional courses and that too on a very large scale. The website of the Board says, “It is worth mentioning that only on the basis of these test one can get admission to the courses recognized by national level bodies like All India Council for Technical Education (-AICTE), Medical Council of India (-MCI), National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) New Delhi etc. against seats available in various institutions of the state.” The power and authority of the Board can be ascertained from the fact that recently, the responsibility to conduct recruitment examinations for posts not covered by state Public Service Commission was also entrusted upon it. So, basically, admission to all professional courses and recruitment to numerous jobs are conducted by the Board.
During the year 2013, Pre-Medical Test (PMT) scam was unearthed by Dr. Anand Rai. He is an Indore based Ophthalmologist, presently working as a medical officer. In the past, he has also worked to expose frauds in clinical trials. Thousands of candidates secured admission to medical colleges in the state through unfair means like impersonation and bribery. According to Dr. Rai, this scam dates back to 2004 and the first case was reported in Khandwa, a city near Indore.
Shri Singh Kushwaha, SP (West), district Indore through letter number SP/ West/ PA/ 412/2013 dated. 19.07.2013 written from office of SP, District Indore (West), Satellite Building, Moti Tabela, Indore informed Pankaj Trivedi, Controller, MP Vyapam that case number 539/ 13 under sections 419, 420, 467, 468 had been registered in Police station Rajendr Nagar in connection with PMT 2013 exam and was under investigation. He also supplied the list of 317 suspect candidates, found from the home of the accused, to Pankaj Trivedi.
Owing to the political patronage enjoyed by him, Pankaj Trivedi, Examination controller, Vyapam was unperturbed and despite being involved neck-deep in corruption, he audaciously wrote a letter to Principal Secretary, Medical education department, Government of MP regarding PMT scam, virtually issuing instruction to his superior officer. In point number 4 of letter number MP Vyapam/4674 Bhopal dated 20.07.2013 he wrote, “In view of the above fact and the above mentioned letter of SP (West), District Indore, the fake/suspect candidates, who have found place in the merit list should be allotted seats on a provisional basis during counselling with the condition that if his or her involvement in the crime number 539/18 is proved in the course of police probe/investigation, then his or her candidature will be considered automatically cancelled”.
On July 6 and 7, Indore crime branch had arrested 20 candidates from various city hotels of whom 17 belonged to Uttar Pradesh while three were from Madhy Pradesh. The candidates had come to impersonate MPPMT candidates.
At a high level meeting held in Bhopal in July 2013, senior bureaucrats raised serious questions on the police investigation in Vyapam scam and expressed surprise over the fact that Dr. Sagar could operate so smoothly. Moreover, they were shocked to know that no tab was kept on him as he was arrested in 2003 in similar case. In the same meeting, government admitted major lapses in its working that helped the pre-medical test scam thrive.
In November 2013, the Special Task Force (-STF) of Madhy Pradesh police made a shocking revelation that Vyapam officials rigged five more recruitment tests for government jobs in the state. Different FIRs against 153 people including mining baron Sudhir Sharma were filed. Sharma, a close confidante of Chief Minister Shiv Raj Singh Chauhan, was earlier interrogated by Central Bureau of Investigation (-CBI) in connection with mining scam.
In December 2013, Special Task Force produced a supplementary charge sheet against 34 accused, running into 23,000 pages in the Indore district court. Out of these 34 accused chargesheeted, 30 were students and their guardians.
On April 29, 2014, 27 students of Mahatma Gandhi Memorial (-MGM) medical college were expelled as it was proved that they obtained admission via fraudulent means.
On June 19, 2014, Special Task Force of Madhy Pradesh police issued a statement that it has arrested over 100 students for their involvement in the scam and this number could go up as arrests are being made everyday. All these students cleared the medical entrance test through fraudulent means.
In September 2014, shocking disclosure of rigging bank exams was made by Special Task Force on the basis of interrogation of Dr. Jagdish Sagar and Mohit Chaudhary. Numerous candidates who fraudulently cleared the written examination of bank recruitment, ultimately failed to clear the interview.
MODUS OPERANDI ::
IMPERSONATION: The admission card of the candidate was used to execute the trick. All the information of the candidate remained intact except the photograph. Candidate’s photograph was replaced by that of the impersonator and after the exam, it was changed back to the original. All this was done in collusion with the corrupt Board officials. The impersonator was always some brilliant student and used to get hefty amount to secure the seat.
PASSING ON: A person was strategically seated between two other candidates by the Board officials. The person let them copy from his answer sheet and the examiners were bribed to fix it.
OMR SHEETS: The select candidates were asked to leave their answer sheets blank. They were randomly given high percentages after the exam. Concerned authorities of the Board then filed an RTI demanding to view those answer sheets. They then filled in the answers in the OMR booklet according to the marks they have already been given. This was done so that if someone were to ever check those answer sheets, there would not be any loop holes that could give them away.
Vyapam admitted in the High Court that 1020 forms were missing and 346 impostors had appeared in the examination. Vyapam officials admitted in the court that 1120 candidates appeared in the exam but their forms were missing because Vyapam official and accused Nitin Mahendr had tampered with the Computers in which the record was stored. The STF has presented charge-sheet against 28 accused, including Jagdish Sagar, in Indore Court. The fact that the charge-sheet includes details of 3292 different offences and more than 92,176 documents is indicative of the enormity of the scam.
MAIN ACCUSED-KEY ARRESTS
Laxmi Kant Sharma, ex-Education Minister (M.P): After being quizzed twice, the Bhartiy Janta Party (-BJP) leader was arrested after his alleged involvement in contractual teachers recruitment scam. The exam was conducted by MPPEB and Sharma was its Minister in-charge in his capacity as the then Technical Education Minister in the last BJP government in the state. He later resigned from BJP after he was sent to four days police remand. Later, three FIRs were filed against him in separate cases.
Dr. Vinod Bhandari: He is the main accused and was arrested on the charges of illegally helping students to get admission through Vyapam officers. He fled to Mauritius when he was named in the scam and returned only after an anticipatory bail was granted by the Madhy Pradesh High Court.
O. P. Shukla: He was posted as Officer on Special Duty (-OSD) with then Technical Education Minister Laxmi Kant Sharma. Soon after the investigations gained momentum, he went underground and surrendered two months after the investigation team released a lookout notice for him. He allegedly took 8.5 million (-85 lakhs) Rupees from the candidates for clearing the medical entrance test.
Pankaj Trivedi, Examination Controller Vyapam: He was arrested in September 2013 and is currently in a judicial custody. The state anti-corruption police has recovered around 25 million rupees and numerous properties from his possession that are unknown to his sources of income. Evidence of his partnership in Indore based medical college was also found.
Sudhir Sharma: He is the mining baron of Madhy Pradesh and an accused in the sub-inspector and constable recruitment scam. His rise from the a primary school teacher to a billionaire is surrounded by mysteries. The investigative team declared him as an absconder and declared a reward of Rs. 5000 for information about his whereabouts. After a long hide and seek, he finally surrendered on July 25, 2014.
CK Mishra, Officer, Vyapam: He has admitted that he was working for Dr. Sagar, Santosh Gupta and Sanjiv Shilpkar since 2009. In 2009, Dr. Sagar had given him application forms of 20 candidates, who were to be allotted roll numbers in such a way that in the exam, their seats were one behind the other. Rs 50,000 per roll number was paid to him. Thus, he received Rs 1 million. In 2010, Dr. Sagar gave forms of 40 students. This time Rs 2 million was paid. In 2012, Dr. Sagar took contract of 60 students, Shilpkar gave roll numbers of 20 boys. They paid Rs 3 million and Rs 1 million respectively.
Nitin Mahendra (Principal System Analyst) and Ajay Sen (Senior System Analyst): Vyapam programmer Yashwant Parnekar and clerk Yuvraj Hingve said in their statements that the computers of Mahendr and Sen were not linked with the main server of Vyapam. These two officers could access the data stored in 25 other computers at Vyapam but the data in their computers could not be accessed by anyone. Taking advantage of this, they allotted roll numbers and examination centers as per their wish.
Dr. Jagdish Sagar (Middleman): He used to handover handwritten notes to Vyapam officials, telling them which roll number to allot to which student. For the session 2013, Dr. Sagar had given 317, Shilpakar 92 and Sanjay Gupta 48 names. Mahendr had recorded the details of these candidates in his computer and destroyed the list. While allotting roll numbers to these candidates, the slots immediately before or after them were left blank. These roll numbers were then allotted to fake candidate. The roll numbers were set at their homes and brought to office in Pen drive. After reaching the office, they uploaded the roll numbers to the computers. After that Mahendr, used to telephone Dr. Sagar and tell him, “The work has been done. You can check on the website”.
Animesh Akash Singh: He worked as a broker and got admitted four candidates in PMT.
Jitendr Malviy: A third year student of MBBS at MGM College of Indore who had got admitted one candidate in PMT 2013 through Dr. Sanjeev Shilpakar.
R. K. Shivhare, Suspended IPS Officer: He is an accused for his alleged involvement in the recruitment of sub-inspector and platoon commander examination of 2012 conducted by Vyapam. He is also an accused in getting his daughter and son-in-law admitted in the medical college by fraudulent means. When the probe agency registered a case against him, he was suspended but evaded arrest. He was declared absconder and a reward or Rs. 3000 was put against him. He later surrendered on April 21, 2014.
Ravi Kant Dwivedi, Suspended Joint Commissioner (Revenue): He was arrested for getting his son admitted into one of the premiere medical colleges through unfair means. Later, the state anti-corruption wing raided his house and were in a shock to found cash, jewellery, property worth Rs. 600-700 million.
Vandana Dwivedi: On September 11, 2014, Special Task Force (STF) arrested the Bhartiy Janta Party (-BJP) leader for her role in the scam. She had given C. K. Mishra a list of five candidates for recruitment in contractual teachers (grade II) appointment out of which two were selected.
Dr. G S Khanuja: On September 13, 2014, Special Task Force (STF) arrested the COO of Aurbindo hospital located in Indore. His son secured 12th rank in the medical examination of 2012 through unfair means.
Mohit Chaudhary: He was arrested along with his gang for helping the students appearing in pre-medical test cheat with the help of blue tooth. He was earlier arrested in 2012 for rigging other competitive exams but was released on bail. He himself fraudulently cracked the post-graduate medical entrance examination conducted by the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).
Narendra Dev Azad (Jatav): On February 19, 2015, the special investigation team (SIT) arrested him on the charges of acting as a middleman in the admission of Amar Singh Medha in 2009 in MGM College, Indore.
Rashtriy Swayam Sewak Sangh (RSS): Arrested Vyapam examination controller Pankaj Tri Vedi had spelled beans that two RSS leaders were directly involved in the scam as they got their men recruited in the government job. The two RSS leaders named in the written statement are former Late RSS Chief K C Sudarshan and Suresh Soni. Police later denied the involvement of RSS leaders as they did not have the evidence to substantiate it. However, on October 13, 2014, Suresh Soni was relieved from his responsibilities and the sources in the organization said that Vyapam scam was one of the reasons for this decision, because his name raised during the investigation had caused embarrassment to the RSS.
WHISTLE BLOWER: Indore based Dr. Anand Rai and Gwalior based social activist Ashish Chaturvedi are the two main whistle blowers of this scam. While Dr. Anand Rai blew the lid over this scam, Ashish Chaturvedi blew the whistle over involvement of Chief Minister Shiv Raj Singh Chauhan’s relatives in the scam. Despite a Whistle Blower’s Protection law in force, both of them face threat to their life and were denied police protection. Ashish Chaturvedi has already suffered three attacks on his life including an abduction bid. Chaturvedi had also petitioned CBI to probe admissions of 5,000 doctors in MBBS and PG courses of 2003-2013 in all state colleges.
In July 2014, Prashant Pandey, a forensic expert became a whistle blower, when he came to know that Special Task Force relied on tampered evidence and made this information public. Later, the Madhy Pradesh police registered an FIR against him for leaking the information.He also claimed that only five percent of the scam had been probed.
This scam exposes the wider nexus of poor healthcare, corruption and central licensing powers.
Madhy Pradesh has a doctor population ratio of 1:18650 ( roughly 1:300 in Europe ). Newly qualified post graduates earn approximately 20 times the Per capita income of Madhy Pradesh and hence privileged parents are willing to plough money in education. Post graduation costs up to 400 lakh rupees ( $650,000 ) in a state recognised Private College while it is comparatively much cheaper at 75 lakhs, to 'purchase' a seat in a government run school, through the scam network.
India is the only country where sale of medical seats by private medical colleges is part of official policy. It means the ability to pay counts more than merit. The Medical Council of India, which regulated the sold medical seats, itself accused of being systemically corrupt, has both slashed medical seats and made suitability tests for students who study abroad extremely difficult, thus increasing the price of Private medical education, while education remains comparatively free in the relatively few state run colleges once the bribes have been paid.
Congress had demanded a CBI probe into the scam and expressed concern over impartial investigation but the government declined to comply with this demand. The opposition also pressed for resignation of the Chief Minister on moral grounds in view of alleged involvement of his ministers and relatives. On the other hand, the Chief Minister had termed it as “mudslinging” by the opposition due to the defeat in Lok Sabha election 2014.
The Chief Minister also vowed to take legal action against Congress leaders who leveled serious allegations on his wife but later dropped the plan on the advice of bureaucrats close to him as it may have led to another embarrassment for the government.
On November 5, 2014, Madhy Pradesh High Court rejected Digvijay Singh's petition for CBI probe and ordered setting up of a special investigation team (SIT) to act as a watchdog for the court. The court also directed the special task force (-STF) to keep a close watch on news related to the scam in electronic and print media and make relevant news a part of the investigation.The High Court of Madhy Pradesh has appointed Justice Chandresh Bhushan, Retd. Judge of the Madhy Pradesh High Court as the Chairman of the SIT along with two other members to probe the scam.
On February 16, 2015,Congress alleged that Chief Minister Shiv Raj Singh Chauhan's name was removed from a document seized from accused Nitin Mahendr's computer.The allegation was based on special investigation team's having admitted that the hard disk seized from Nitin Mahendr's computer was cloned. Congress leader Digvijay Singh said, "This affidavit is a challenge to the Madhy Pradesh Chief Minister: Either he should resign or prosecute me for giving false evidence if he thinks my allegations are wrong." However, BJP termed it as a false allegation.
On February 18, 2015, the special investigation team sought permission from Madhy Pradesh High court to probe state Governor Ram Naresh Yadav. which was subsequently granted. FIR was registered against Governor's son Shailesh Yadav as well. Congress raised this issue in Madhy Pradesh Vidhan Sabha during its budget session. For the first time in the history of Indian politics, the assembly session ended only in 6 days without discussion on the budget.
In March 2015, whistle blower Prashant Pandey submitted the original documents in Delhi High Court. He produced an excel sheet that had the name of Chief Minister of Madhy Pradesh, Shiv Raj Singh Chauhan mentioned forty eight times while the one used by the investigating agency to prepare the charge sheet had none. His excel sheet was authenticated by a private forensic lab. BJP alleged that the whistle blowers were paid off to which Pandey responded that he had initially given the documents to Madhy Pradesh minister Kailash Vijay Vargiy and sent it to Prime Minister's Office as well but no action was initiated.
40 PEOPLE INVOLVED IN THE SCAM HAVE BEEN MURDERED SO FAR, SHOWING DEEP ROOTED INVOLVEMENT OF HIGH UPS IN POWER CIRCLES.
DEATHS-MURDERS: On March 25, 2015, Shailesh Yadav, the son of Madhy Pradesh Governor Ram Naresh Yadav and an accused in the scam was found dead under mysterious circumstances.
*On April 28, 2015, Vijay Singh was found dead under mysterious circumstances in Kanker district of Chhattisgarh. A Pharmacist by profession, he was a key accused linked to several high profile people involved in the scam. His body was recovered from a lodge owned by BJP's MLA and the last call from his mobile was traced to his lawyer in Bhopal.
*Pharmacist Vijay Singh, a key accused linked to several high-profile suspects in MPPEB scam, was found dead under mysterious circumstances in Kanker district of Chhattisgarh.
The Supreme Court on Monday asked Special Task Force (STF), probing Vyapam scam in Madhy Pradesh, to complete the investigation within four months.
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संतोष महादेव-धर्म विद्या सिद्ध व्यास पीठ (बी ब्लाक, सैक्टर 19, नौयडा)
