Tag: Vyapam

How the Supreme Court Became Our Last Hope for Justice in the Vyapam Scam

Lead counsel representing the whistleblowers explains why the case had to be taken out of the hands of the Madhya Pradesh government

Lead counsel representing the whistleblowers explains why the case had to be taken out of the hands of the Madhya Pradesh government

Police cane charge Youth Congress activists during a protest at the residence of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, over Vyapam Scam in Bhopal on Thursday. PTI Photo

Police cane charge Youth Congress activists during a protest at the residence of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, over Vyapam Scam in Bhopal on Thursday. PTI Photo

Madhya Pradesh continues to be rattled by the revelations of Vyapam, a non-ending saga of the state’s connivance with corruption on a scale hitherto unthinkable. Vyapam has come to be known as a multi-billion rupee homegrown illicit business engineered with state support and patronage. It is the largest scam engulfing the highest and the mightiest of the state. The word stands for Hindi shorthand of the Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board but it is now an acronym for the practice of procuring illegal admissions in government and private medical and dental colleges and jobs in government services on a magnitude never seen before. Vyapam also involved selection of candidates for various departments in the state of Madhya Pradesh including in Police, Forest, Excise, Weight & Measures and Revenue, patwaris, teachers, the Dairy Federation etc. during the period 2007-2013 in an estimated 1,40,000 posts.

Over the past 30 days, I have come to believe there is finally light at the end of the tunnel. On June 3, I was screaming that something was going wrong but nobody was listening. Hindustan Times carried my article, ‘Vyapam Scam: A theatre of the absurd in Madhya Pradesh’. By that time, nearly 40 deaths related to or connected with Vyapam had been reported. In Madhya Pradesh, the mood was melancholic, with people helplessly watching the last embers of hope extinguishing. Time was running out for the final challenge before the last date fixed for closure of investigations by the Supreme Court. We were gearing up to take on the Vyapam Goliath. The only partners in this last lap of our crusade were the four whistleblowers namely, Anand Rai, Ashish Chaturvedi, Prashant Pandey and Ajay Dubey. We were also ably assisted by a young team of selfless lawyers spear headed by Vaibhav Srivastava.

Supreme Court steps in

For us, the last hope was the Supreme Court of India.  July 15th was the deadline fixed for filing charge-sheets in the Vyapam cases for the STF (Special Task Force). So we collated all relevant facts by the end of June 2015 on behalf of the whistleblowers and Congress leader Digvijaya Singh. The Apex Court reopened on July 1. Amazingly, the reopening of the court coincided with the sad and unfortunate deaths of more young people including journalist Akshay Singh. In the first week of July, Vyapam occupied national attention and laid bare the state’s involvement in this macabre tragedy.

Vyapam was no more a distant story of misery of 7.5 crore people of Madhya Pradesh. It was now perceived as a public shame, a sordid state-sponsored scam next to which Bollywood pot-boilders paled into insignificance. It had mystery, the involvement of high functionaries, financial gains running into billions, and a line of deaths in most suspicious circumstances leaving the nation benumbed. Young people were dying of sudden heart attacks, liver failure, road accidents, suicides, hanging and multifarious other ways for which nobody seemed to have an answer.

The state of Madhya Pradesh through its mouthpiece, the STF, found nothing unusual in these deaths. The matter reached the High Court of Madhya Pradesh at Jabalpur; but here we found the proceedings bereft of empathetic contemplation. In these circumstances, petitions were filed before the Supreme Court under Article 32 of the Constitution. The petitions were mentioned for urgent listing before the Chief Justice of India on July 7 and here it evoked instant response. The apex court ordered listed all Petitions relating to Vyapam scam and deaths on July 9, 2015. A significant statement by Chief Justice H. L. Dattu at the time of accepting the mentioning request, was “Let there be no more deaths, we will address the issue.” The storyline of a death a day changed with these soothing words of compassion and empathy. Providentially, since July 7, there has been no report of the death of anyone associated with Vyapam.

The pressure on the state government to order a fair probe was enormous. Only two days earlier, the Chief Minister of the state and the Home Minister of India had outrightly refused to countenance any demand to hand over Vyapam investigation to the CBI. They found no wrong or unfairness in the investigation of the STF. But within 48 hours there was a change of heart; what brought this change was the Supreme Court’s direction to hear the matter on July 9. Within hours of the Supreme Court’s statement on July 7, the Chief Minister decided to move the High Court at Jabalpur for transfer of the investigation to the CBI, forgetting that the matter was directed to be listed by the apex court  for hearing within 48 hours. Naturally, the decision of the state government to approach the High Court received flak from all quarters.

Finally, hope of justice

‘July the 9th’ will remain etched in the memory of the 7.5 crore people of Madhya Pradesh as a day of hope resurrected. This day not only heralded justice for the whistleblowers and counsels representing them, but it was and will always be remembered as the day of the victory of the people of of the state who were starving for justice to be done, and done visibly. “Justice may be delayed but not denied” emerged as a founding truth. There was immense relief and satisfaction in the country when the Supreme Court directed a CBI enquiry in Vyapam-related cases. It also sent shockwaves amongst the rank and file of the ruling clique of the state, which so far had enjoyed the comfort of control and immunity from any investigation.

The STF’s investigation was known more for its cover-up rather than any pro-active effort to garner truth. On that day, the apex court also issued notice on a petition filed by Sanjay Shukla and some public-spirited lawyers from Gwalior who were not willing to countenance a Governor linked to the scam. The Union government, which in the past had on the flimsiest of pretexts, dismissed or forced the resignation of a long line of Governors saw no sin in continuing with a Governor in Madhya Pradesh against whom an FIR was registered by STF on February 24, 2015. The least I can say is that our founding fathers led by  Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, the architect of the Constitution, may have never anticipated a Governor continuing as head of the state with a criminal FIR under Sections 120(b), 420, 467, 468 and provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act against him.

Madhya Pradesh at this stage is at its lowest ebb. It has never seen a moral decline of this magnitude. The state’s growth story, superficially created through advertisements and clever marketing stands exposed. A collective rot has set in. It may take years to repair the damage but the first step for any such repair is to hold those who symbolise or have contributed to this rot to judicial account.

Vivek K. Tankha is a Senior Advocate, a Former Additional Solicitor General of India and a former Advocate General of Madhya Pradesh

Featured image by Meena Kadri, CC 2.0

Vyapam is the Symptom, Criminalisation of Medical Education is the Disease

What the country urgently needs is a thorough clean-up of all medical education and regulatory bodies at the state and central levels

What the country urgently needs is a thorough clean-up of all medical education and regulatory bodies at the state and central levels

File photo from 2010 of former Medical Council of India president Ketan Desai

File photo from 2010 of former Medical Council of India president Ketan Desai. Credit: PTI.

The Vyapam scam in Madhya Pradesh has exposed the underbelly of medical education and its criminalisation in India. The brazenness with which entrance exams and recruitments have been conducted was only possible due to collusion of sections of all instruments of the State – politicians, the judiciary and bureaucracy – with businessmen, medical professionals and even journalists. Senior members of the medical profession have been actively involved in this scam with monetary exchange of an order that may never be known.

After a lengthy silence, the national media is now reporting extensively on the scam and much of the debate has focused on the misrule of the Bharatiya Janata Party government in the state. In our view, however, Vyapam is not restricted to Madhya Pradesh. The scam is pervasive and could well cover many other states ruled by other political parties. Governments in other states are not above board in matters relating to the recognition and licensing of medical colleges, conducting entrance tests, and collecting capitation fees and bribes for admission and award of degrees. The extensive corruption in medical education represents both a political and an institutional crisis.

The authority of the Medical Council of India, which is the apex regulatory body for medical education, has been systematically undermined due to the flouting of rules for monetary gain. The MCI and the State Medical Councils play an important role in setting and implementing guidelines for the curriculum, entrance exams, ethical standards and practices of doctors. However, in practice, the MCI has reneged on its responsibility to enforce standards. It has been widely reported that an important reason for this failure was the deep-seated corruption in the MCI over which Dr. Ketan Desai, former council president, and members of the board presided.

One of us, Rama Baru, was a member of the Ethics Committee of the MCI a few years ago and we are thus privy to information about malpractices and CBI chargesheets against Ketan Desai and several private medical colleges in south India.

In fact, our knowledge of corrupt practices in the MCI dates back to 2001 when Desai was charged with misuse of office and the Delhi High Court ordered his removal from the post, opining that:

“The allegations of [the] petitioner against Dr. Ketan Desai regarding minting money stands established. He has misused his position as President of the MCI. He is using the office for making illegal monetary gains for himself and his family members. Prima facie a case for prosecution of Dr. Ketan Desai on charges of corruption under the Prevention of Corruption Act is clearly made out”.

Despite this indictment he continued to remain in office.

 In 2009, Desai managed to get elected unopposed as MCI president. In 2010, the Central Bureau of Investigation charged him with accepting a bribe of over Rs. 2 crore for granting recognition to a private medical college in Punjab. Soon after his arrest, the CBI also raided his home in Gujarat and filed additional charges for having “disproportionate wealth” estimated at around Rs. 1,800 crores. Subsequent to this, Desai’s medical registration was cancelled by the MCI. This received media attention and there was pressure from civil society that led to the dissolution of the MCI by the government. The Centre then appointed a seven member committee to oversee the functioning of MCI, as an interim arrangement before fresh elections could be held.

It is during this period that the Ethics Committee heard several cases of fraud in the recognition of private medical colleges and the conduct of entrance exams in several states. The Ethics Committee had recommended the de-recognition of these colleges and punishment for the erring doctors. Many of these recommendations were ratified by the Board of Governors but others were not acted upon due to the dissolution of the interim Board.

A dodgy election

In October 2013, the Centre announced the constitution of the new MCI with a representative body. However, even though Ketan Desai’s licence has remained derecognised since 2010, he managed to nominate himself from the Gujarat State Medical University. When questioned he said, ‘that the MCI has no jurisdiction or authority to suspend the registration of any doctor registered with any state medical council’. The elections were conducted on December 11, 2013 for the post of president, vice president and executive/post graduate committee members and the new MCI was constituted.

The way in which these elections were conducted amounted to manipulation by a small mafia of doctors who had a hold over the MCI and State Medical Councils. A writ petition filed by Dr. Kunal Saha, President of an NGO called People For Better Treatment (PBT) pointed out that all major officers of the council were elected unopposed. These members were close associates of Desai. It is well known that a day before the election, Desai hosted a party. Most of the nominated members who were close to him attended the party. He printed a list of members for the major posts and explained who will nominate who’s name (“proposers”) and those who will support these nominations (“seconders”) for the next day’s election. A formal complaint was made by a newly elected member (Balbir S. Tomar) that the process of election was a fraud. The Hindu reported that Tomar “had said that the MCI lacked a formal and ethical structure for nominating its members. The nomination procedure in the MCI got over in just 10 minutes against the officially stipulated procedure that requires two days of deliberations.”

It is relevant to note that Ketan Desai had the support of several politicians cutting across all political parties, including the top leadership of the Samajwadi Party, Congress Party and Bharatiya Janata Party. As a result, when Keshav Desiraju, a distinguished and upright IAS official who was he Union Health Secretary at the time, took the view that the pending CBI charges against Desai made him ineligible for contesting the MCI elections, he was transferred by the then Congress-led UPA government.

It has also been reported that the Central Vigilance Officer, Harish Kumar Jethi, who was appointed in 2013, requested repatriation to his parent department, citing reasons of harassment and lack of co-operation from the president and several officials of the MCI in his efforts to deal with corruption. When Dr Harshvardhan was appointed Union Health Minister by Narendra Modi in May 2014, he showed some resolve in seeking to clean up the MCI but he was soon dropped from the cabinet. While the ‘tobacco lobby’ was accused of seeking the minister’s removal, it is entirely possible that the ‘medical mafia’ may have contributed to his ouster.

The Vyapam scam has opened a Pandora’s Box that the MCI has tried hard to shut. While this scam, including the death of several people connected with medical education, both private and government, should be investigated on its own terms, it should encourage concerned citizens, the medical profession and the government to undertake a thorough review and reform of medical education and of its regulatory bodies, both at the state and Central levels.

Rama Baru is a Professor at the Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health, JNU
Archana Diwate is a Research Scholar at the Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health, JNU