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Deepak Tiwari
Deepak Tiwari

MADHYA PRADESH

HC closes ten out of 17 special Vyapam courts

peb-bhopal-vyapam Supreme Court has directed CBI to complete the process of filing charge sheets by the end of October

The Madhya Pradesh High Court has ordered to close ten out of 17 special sessions courts for Vyapam trials in various cities of the state. The decision to this effect was taken last week after the CBI failed to initiate trial in all these courts. Now, all the 112 cases related to Vyapam admission and recruitment scam will be heard at remaining ten courts in Bhopal, Gwalior, Indore and Jabalpur. 

These courts were set up in May 2015 by the Jabalpur bench of Madhya Pradesh High Court for speedy trial of the scam. The courts were directed to hold day-to-day hearing of the cases for fast delivery of justice. However, in July 2015 the Supreme Court ordered a CBI inquiry into the scam and all the cases being investigated by Special Task Force of Madhya Pradesh police were transferred to the central investigation agency.

According to CBI sources, the decision to close 10 courts was taken on request of the agency as it was finding it difficult to manage cases in 17 courts located at various districts of the state. Undergoing a shortage of manpower, the Vyapam investigation was delayed by the premier agency. Though the state government has provided the necessary infrastructure and police force to assist CBI as per its requirement, the enormity of scam has slowed the process of filing charge sheets and initiation of trail in many cases, said the source.

With the cases prolonging for more than two years even after Supreme Court asking to complete the investigation in a time frame, many accused got bails over a period of time. The prominent among the accused to get bail were former Technical Education Minister Laxmikant Sharma, Vyapam Director Pankaj Trivedi, System Analyst Nitin Mohindra, Sudhir Sharma and Dr Jagdish Sagar.

After reports of slow trial, the Supreme Court has directed CBI to complete the process of filing charge sheets by the end of October this year.

The high court has asked CBI to club the 49 districts with three special courts in Bhopal, two in Gwalior and one each in Indore and Jabalpur. 

Forty-eight deaths have been reported in connection with the case ever since the scam, in which professional examination board was accused of cheating over 10 million job seekers and students wanting to get admission in MBBS, was exposed by whistle blowers.

The names of former Governor of Madhya Pradesh Ramnaresh Yadav, chief minister Shivraj Singh, Union Minister Uma Bharti and many IAS and IPS officers have been surfaced in the scam.

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Topics : #Vyapam scam

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