The Supreme Court today permitted Madhya Pradesh Special Task Force and Special Investigation Team to file chargesheets in the Vyapam scam till Thursday. A bench headed by Chief Justice HL Dattu passed the order after the CBI said that there were many cases which had not yet been taken over by the central agency as directed by the court.
It said that fully taking over the 105 cases related to the scam would take at least 4 weeks and if STF and SIT stopped taking care of the cases then many arrested accused could get bail by default.
The apex court asked the STF and SIT to take appropriate action under criminal procedure code for these 245 accused and asked petitioners Digvijay Singh and others to file reply to CBI’s plea by Thursday. The matter has been posted for Friday.
On the 9th of this month, the apex court had ordered a transfer of the probe into all Vyapam scam cases and the deaths allegedly linked to it to the CBI.
A 40-member CBI team began probing the scam earlier this week, and it has registered at least 12 cases, so far.
The Special Task Force, which earlier probed the scam, had registered about 55 FIRs in connection with the scandal.
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is facing flak over the multi-crore Vyapam in which more than 40 people have died, so far. The Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board or Vyapam scam relates to irregularities in admission in state-run medical colleges and recruitment in government jobs.