India’s Vyapam Scam Being Investigated by National Investigative Body
by Milind Kher
It is a scam involving 7.7 million students, the deaths of at least 35 people, huge sums of money and as many as 2,000 suspects.
Starting in India’s central state Madhya Pradesh, the Vyapam scam goes back at least eight years and needs the help of the national investigative body, the Central Bureau of Investigation, to get to the bottom of it. A formal investigation into the Vyapam scam started in 2013, although it is suspected the scam goes back to 2000.
That doesn’t quite tell me what the scam is. What is it?
Vyapam is the acronym for Vyavsayik Pariksha Mandal (Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board), an autonomous organization of the State Government of Madhya Pradesh. The scam part is where students or job applicants have another person, usually someone who has already passed the exam, take exams in their stead. It resulted in underqualified people getting into medical schools and governmental jobs.
The scam hit the media in 2013 when the use of proxy examinees became public knowledge. Police in Madhya Pradesh’s largest city by population, Indore, arrested 20 people — 18 who were student impersonators appearing for a medical exam — and started looking into what became the Vyapam scam. Since then, investigations into Vyapam have gone from the hands of a special task force organized by Madhya Pradesh’s Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan to being handled by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
How did the scam work? How did people get away with it?
The scam continued for as long as it did because of a corrupt system perpetuated by bribes.
The student wanting an exam taken for himself/herself had three options: be impersonated, utilize the “engine and bogie” system, or use OMR sheets.
- Impersonation: For the examination hall ticket (form of ID required to take an exam), details of the actual candidate — such as name, date of birth and roll number — are used, but the photograph is that of the proxy candidate. After the exam, the photograph of the proxy is replaced with that of the candidate.
- “Engine and bogie” system: In reference to the railway, the “engine and bogie” system facilitates cheating on the exam. A person known as the “engine” is seated between two candidates who are the bogies (local term for railway carriages). The engine allows the bogies to copy from their answer sheet. Examiners are bribed to look the other way.
- OMR sheets: Candidates are advised to leave their answer sheets blank and are given random marks after the examination. Answers are then filled in the OMR booklet according to the scores already given.
This sounds like a large-scale operation. What are the numbers associated with it?
7.7 million candidates have paid to achieve the results they did.
The Indian newspaper The Hindu estimates more than 300 million dollars has been given as bribe money to politicians and bureaucrats.
Although the police have arrested 2,000 people, it is estimated that 500 suspects are still at large.
Officially, 35 deaths have been linked to the scam. However, activists say at least 40 suspects have died so far. One of those who died was a journalist investigated the scam, Akshay Singh, who worked for the television station Aaj Tak.
Why the discrepancy in the number of dead people?
People associated with the scam in various capacities have wound up dead under what seem to be normal circumstances like road accidents and heart attacks. Some even committed suicide. However, with the CBI investigating the deaths and calling all related information “highly sensitive,” it is difficult to say exactly how many people have died, and why the numbers differ on how many suspects in the case have died.
Who are the suspects associated with Vyapam?
Although all 2,000 named and arrested people associated with the scam cannot be mentioned here, some of the bigger fish in the scam sea are:
Politicians and bureaucrats:
- Laxmikant Sharma: former education minister
- OP Shukla: Officer on Special Duty (OSD) with Laxmikant Sharma
- Sudhir Sharma: mining businessman
- R.K. Shivhare: suspended IPS officer
- Ravikant Dwivedi: suspended joint commissioner (revenue)
Principal racketeers:
- Dr. Jagdish Sagar: Indore-based doctor
- Dr. Sanjeev Shilpkar: Bhopal-based junior of Dr. Sagar
- Sudhir Rai, Tarang Sharma: members of a gang
What is the government’s reaction?
The special task force that started its investigation in August 2013 was monitored by the state’s high court. However, the CBI did not get involved till July 2015. The Congress accused Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan of covering up the scam. To counter Congress’ accusation, Chauhan invited the CBI to begin its probe into the scam and particularly into the 25 (or 40) deaths.
“If I wasn’t here and if I didn’t want, then no one would have been able to catch the Vyapam scam,”
Chauhan told reporters from national newspaper Economic Times.
“Who did the catching? It wasn’t the media or Congress leaders. It was Shivraj Singh Chouhan…What can be a bigger evidence of my honesty than this?”
Brief contributed by Milind Kher
More Information:
- Indian Express: Tracking “Vyapam Deaths”: Cancer to bike accident to suicide. grieving families demand answers
- The Hindu: The Vyapam scam trail
- Hindustan Times: Vyapam scam: Big fish now in CBI net
