BENGALURU: A special court for CBI cases has declined to discharge the accused in the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS) postgraduate entrance test (PGET) paper leak case. Many of the accused are doctors.
Special judge for CBI Cases T N Inavally on January 27 ordered that charges be framed against all the accused, including then RGUHS vice-chancellor Dr P S Prabhakaran and Registrar VI Hukkeri, who are the first and second accused respectively.
The court rejected the pleas of Dr S A Giridhar, Dr S C Ashoka, Dr H Srinivas, Dr R Babitha, Dr Nandita D Shetty, Dr Shanthanu Savkur, Dr B Girish, Dr S K Harsha, Dr Anand Halyal, Dr B Mekhala Dwarakanath, Dr B E Sandeep, Dr Neha Bansal, Dr Bhavani M Hulinayakar and Dr Sida Tagore.
They are from the Bengaluru, Mysuru, Tumakuru and Belagavi districts. In addition to this, the court dismissed the plea of one Rajagopal Reddy. However, the court allowed the discharge application filed by the 20th accused Dr Sumath Hegde, as there was no material to show his involvement.
According to the chargesheet submitted by the CBI, the RGUHS had conducted the PGET in February 2006. After the examination, several candidates submitted written complaints alleging that the question papers were leaked.
Subsequently, an inquiry was conducted, the result of which revealed that the examination was not held in a foolproof way.
Then, the government entrusted the matter to CBI. The investigation revealed that RGUHS officials were in touch with some candidates, who secured a rank among the top 20 in the list, which reflected the nexus between beneficiaries of the candidates and the then VC and registrar of the varsity.
The CBI also said that some candidates contacted the registrar directly and also through middlemen at the instance of then VC on February 11, 2006, a day prior to the PGET, and such candidates accessed the question papers and secured top ranks.
The candidates were allegedly brought to a hotel in Basavanagudi, where rooms were booked for them on the pretence of a marriage party at the insistence of the vice-chancellor and registrar, with the assistance of some private persons.
The exams were then conducted for them in the hotel.