BHOPAL: A special court in Bhopal on Wednesday ordered lodging case against former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijaya Singh, MP Congress Committee chief Kamal Nath, state party campaign committee chief Jyotiraditya Scindia and Vyapam scam whistleblower Prashant Pandey.
The special judge (MP/MLA) Suresh Singh ordered lodging the case of forging documents and criminal conspiracy against Rajya Sabha member Singh, Scindia and Nath (both Lok Sabha members) and the Vyapam scam whistleblower Prashant Pandey under Sections 465, 468, 469, 471, 472, 474 and 120-B of IPC.
The special court passed the order while hearing a private complaint filed by BJP-affiliated advocate Santosh Sharma on September 24.
In the complaint, Sharma had sought lodging of forgery and criminal conspiracy case against the three Congress leaders and the Vyapam scam whistleblower, alleging that they had presented ‘forged evidence’ in the same court and in the past to mislead investigating agencies in the Vyapam scam.
Sharma, who filed the case in personal capacity (and not as office bearer of BJP legal cell) had alleged in his complaint that the Congress leaders along with whistleblower Prashant Pandey had forged documents and cooked up a story to cause injury and falsely implicate highly placed public servants for gaining political mileage.
Narrating the timeline of events in the Vyapam scam, Sharma said first time Congress leaders approached SIT formed by the High Court with the same evidence, but the SIT had found those evidences to be forged and concocted.
Afterwards, the CBI on the directives of the Supreme Court enquired into the evidences and Hard Disk seized by the state police (which initially probed Vyapam scam) to be true and genuine and pen drives presented by others in the case as fake and forged.
Before approaching the court on September 24, Sharma had complained the matter to the Shyamala Hills police station in Bhopal as well as the CBI, but nothing happened on those complaints.
Importantly, the Rajya Sabha member Digvijaya Singh had on September 19 filed a private complaint in the same special court in Bhopal, seeking prosecution of chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, former CM and present union minister Uma Bharti, five police officers of MP and others for tampering the evidence contained in the hard disc seized in July 2013 from key Vyapam accused Nitin Mohindra’s computer.
In the complaint, Singh has alleged that hard disc seized in July 2013 was tampered with as the excel sheet contained in the same disc had originally mentioned the word ‘CM’ 48 times. The word ‘CM’ was removed from the sheet by the police, but Uma Bharti’s name remained untouched. Despite Bharti’s name figuring in the excel sheet, she wasn’t made an accused in any of the Vyapam scam cases by the CBI.
Singh had recorded his statements before the special court in Bhopal on the complaint on Saturday in presence of senior advocates and Congress leaders Kapil Sibal and Vivek Tankha.
Reacting to the special court’s Wednesday order, Lok Sabha member and former union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia tweeted, “our fight against corruption and injustice done to thousands of youths through the Vyapam scam will continue.”