Gwalior police not serious about investigation of Vyapam scam: Whistle blower

Hindustan Times: Bhopal: Sunday, August 12, 2018.

Bhopal Right To Information activist Ashish Chaturvedi has alleged that the police are not serious in their investigation of Vyapam-related cases and claimed that the way Jhansi Road police station, Gwalior is handling one of his Vyapam related complaints, is a total give away.

Chaturvedi was one of the whistle blowers in the multi-layered recruitment-cum-admission Vyapam scam, and has received death threats for his role in bringing the scam to light.

Chaturvedi said he lodged a complaint with Jhansi Road police station in June 2017 , that important documents had gone missing from Gajra Raja Medical College, Gwalior, thereby impacting the investigation into the case.

Chaturvedi said, “I came to know through a RTI reply that the verification check list, admission list, cancellation sheets and even the register of attendance of employees of August 2011 -- crucial to know who all were on duty and verified the documents of Vyapam accused – were missing.” He added that he “gave all the evidence to the police, but they sat on the investigation for 14 months and then on Friday they lodged a case under non-cognisable sections against two persons. They should have registered case under cognisable sections and arrested them.”

Jhansi Road police station sub-inspector Bharat Ram Thakur said the police had done the needful. “After accepting the complaint, we investigated the matter and found that some documents had been either destroyed by the authorities or had gone missing. A case has been registered against two people including a clerk and a student-wing in-charge under section 201 (Causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offender) and section 204 (Destruction of 1[document or electronic record] to prevent its production as evidence) of IPC.” Chaturvedi said that the police should have registered case under Section 120 B (conspiracy), Section 420 (cheating) of IPC and also under Prevention of Corruption Act, as both the accused are government servants, and arrested them. “Police are being lenient to the accused,” he alleged.

SI Thakur said that investigation into the case were going on and if necessary they could always add more sections and arrest the accused. The dean of GR Medical College could not be reached for his comments despite repeated attempts.