Men, Matters & Memories
M L Kotru
In the end Vyapam has ended where it should have at the outset : in the lap of the Central Bureau of Investigation, a much discredited organisation by itself but one which somehow continues to inspire confidence.in any case this is not the place to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the nation’s Prime Criminal Investigation Agency. The question to ask is what is this monster Vyapam and how come it has been allowed to be around for so long, with some 2000 suspects under arrest, some 500 people absconding and 46, at the last count, having lost their lives, some of them whistleblowers, some witnesses and some listed among the accused.
Vyapam to be sure is not a monster,it simply represents human greed,the willingnesss to cheat, an adventurist spirit that’s only too willing to take short cuts to institutions of excellence, universities, medical colleges, engineering collleges and what have you. All in the name of acquiring fake or undeserving degrees to worm your way up the social scale. Or simply to land a lucrative jobas an engineer or doctor ; your ward,armed with a “fixed” professional degree,you, as a fond partent, can be sure, will command a hefty dowry in the marriage markets in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh. and Vyapam we are talking of has been “Vyapak” in Madhya Pradesh. evereyone, almost everyone, down the power ladder from Raj Bhawan to sachivalaya (secretariat) and including sections of judiciary,people are ready and willing to take a dip in the holy mess. Vyapam was not confined just to acquiring through illicit means professional degrees, it also fetched jobs, so it is alleged. and one of the allegations has it that Governor Ram Naresh Yadav’s son collected rs. Rs 3 lakhs on the Raj Bhawan lawns on promisimng jobs to some seekers.
The Governor himself figured at no. 10 in the list of originally charge-sheeted accused but his name was dropped when confronted with the reality that as a constitutional entity the Governor was beyond reproach while in office. not that mr yadav, the incumbent, was bothered. He has carried on for almot two years after Vyapam, burst into the open.
The scam has cast a dark shadow even on the otherwise affable Chief Minister Chouhan’s home, accusing fingers pointing at close family members. of course, Mr Shivraj Chouhan has refuted that charge even as he did rather belatedly order an inquiry into the entire episode resulting in widespread arrests of alleged wrong-doers. It was when the initial inquiry started gathering momentum and arrests were effected that the beans started spilling. Degree-seekers,including many genuine ones, asked questions. the ones with genuine grievances aired their views publicly,risking their lives.
A corrupt system did not want any form of whistle-blowing.murders,disappearances, some victims of fraud and oddly arrested as suspects, became a commonplace. a corrupt authority simultaneously chose to close ranks and collaborated as a team to turn the tables on those who threy believed were talking too much.murders were turned into suicides or accidents.
A young lady who obviously was strangulated was pronounced, with the help of a cooperative senior doctor ,to have died of anxiety caused of all things by a failed romance. the official post-mortem had stated the cause as asphyxation suggesting struggle with her killers, but the specialist overturned the report on the basis of photographic evidence, as distinct from the post-mortem report. I couldn’t believe my eyes when the senior doctor took recourse to a psycological assessment he had made on phgotographic evidence.
To give credibility to the inquiry ordered by him, the Chief Minister had set up a special investigation team,monitored by a High Court Judge,both failing to inspire confidence,much to the glee of the Congress Party and its leader, the former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Mr. Digvijay Singh, who spearheaded the counter-attack and was one of the petitioners to move the Supreme Court pleading of transfer of the Vyapam case from Madhya Pradesh police to the Central Bureau of Investigation, the latter investigation preferably supervised by the Apex Court.
The Supreme Court had two days earlier exppressed its concern over the contuining deaths of alleged accused,whistleblowers et al connected with the case, an occurrence which the retired Madhya Pradesh High Courrt Judge, supervising the investigation by them,somehow chose not to view seriously.I am not imputig motives – far be it from me – but the good man was convinced about the fairness of the local inquiry he supervised; he said so on a number of tv channels after Chief Minister Chouhan initially rejected the demand for transfer of the case to the cbi, endorsed also by Home Minister Rajnath Singh three days earlier. Obviousy the mounting pressure of public opinion did persuade Chouhan to change his mind and to announce his decision to request the Madhya Pradesh High Court to transfer the conduct of the inquiry to he cbi.The Supreme Court had in the meantime taken up consideration of the petitions before it and on Thursday ordered the transfer of the investigation to the cbi. Everyone at the moment seemed happy at the development and none as much as the young surviving whistlebower who had come to delhi from bhopal for the Apex Court pronouncement.
Curiously, the police guard assigned to him for his safety by the mp Government had not accompanied him – he avoids accompanying me even in Bhopal for fear of death , the protectee said. He would not have been much use. his concern though was the the Supreme Court had not clearly stated if it would supervise the cbi inquiry as it had done in some cases in the past.”this not a small, trifling case,sir. the future of thousands of lives and crores of rupees is involved.'”
There is the undoubted involvement of vested interests in the operation of Vyapam. The size and magnitude of the buisiness of manipulating the system in the matter of employmemnt and admissions to professional colleges is enormous. As big as your 2G or similar scams. And this is just the tip of the ice-berg. We haven’t even reached anywhere near the boundary walls of private professional institutions.The admission business is at its murkiest there.
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