The Supreme Court’s directive to the CBI to investigate the Vyapam scam as well as ‘mysterious’ deaths related to it may stop the political blame game, but it is unlikely to stem the rot in the system that the scam signifies.
The scam involving the Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board or Vyapam has so far led to more than 40 deaths; swindling of over Rs 3,000 crore; and led to more than 1,800 arrests. Nearly 500 people have managed to evade the police dragnet through the seemingly unending investigation.
Despite its expanse and deadly impact, the scam has brought out nothing new in India, where examination scams have become a feature of admission to higher educational institutions and selection process for government jobs. Neither is it the first time that witnesses have been eliminated during the tardy process of investigation and trial. Vyapam scam is just a symbol of the failure of the criminal justice system in India where people often die during trial of cases.
A few years ago, the death count in the Uttar Pradesh National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) scandal gave rise to allegations of foul play and criminal conspiracies. Till February 2012, six persons related to the multi-crore scam had been killed. Before that, the main accused in the 2007 Ajmer Dargah blast, Sunil Joshi, was found dead under mysterious circumstances near Godhra, Gujarat.
The most recent case that saw witnesses disappearing in the middle of a trial involved Asaram Bapu and his son. While a probe is still on into the allegations of sexual assault against Asaram and his son, at least two key witnesses have been allegedly killed and several others assaulted.
So, the trail of deaths in the Vyapam scam is not a new phenomenon. In the absence of a witness protection programme, and given the slow pace of investigation and the involvement of powerful politicians, deaths of people related to a probe are not uncommon.
The rub is that none of the three organs of the state—the legislature, executive and judiciary—appear keen to address the issue. Every time a scam breaks out, there is talk of bringing in a sturdier law for the protection of whistleblowers and witnesses. But once the initial noise dies, the drama begins to fade and the media loses interest, such cases are forgotten and the truth is never uncovered.
Just as we know little about the culprits behind the murders linked to the NRHM scam and Ajmer blast, it is possible that we may never get to the real cause of the suspicious deaths of dozens of people—witnesses, accused and journalists—in the Vyapam scam.
The fact is that we have reached a stage where it is becoming increasingly difficult to enforce law of the land, even as the powerful and well-connected evade the law by suborning the system.
In this corrugated system, it would be futile to expect the CBI or any agency that is part of the system to get to the truth. The CBI has already started complaining about lack of staff and infrastructure to deal with such a huge scam. Moreover, it will have to piece together evidence that has already been handled first by the Madhya Pradesh crime branch and later by the special task force and special investigation team.
It is too much to expect that the Supreme Court’s activist intervention alone will change the system. For despite its occasional roaring verdicts, even higher judiciary is not without its blind spots and frailties.
gaursaroj@ymail.com
Gaur is a former Allahabad University Professor and women rights activist