Police on Thursday registered FIR against ex-CM Digvijaya Singh, state party president Kamal Nath Guna MP Jyotiraditya Scindia and whistle blower Prashant Pandey on charges of “fabricating evidence” in the Vyapam scam case. This comes a day after court of special judge Suresh Singh ordered filing of FIR against the trio for deliberately forging electronic record to misguide and misdirect Vyapam case investigation for political mileage.
The court had passed the order, on Wednesday, while hearing a private complaint filed by BJP legal cell state convener advocate Santosh Sharma. Sharma had sought lodging of forgery and criminal conspiracy case against the three Congress leaders and RTI activist, alleging that they had presented ‘forged evidence’ in the same court and in the past to had mislead investigating agencies in the Vyapam scam.
Taking up the petition, the Special Judge instructed Shyamla Hills police station to register a case under Section 156(3) CrPC against the four leaders and complete the investigation by November 13. The police was asked to inform the court after filing the FIR. ASP Shashank Garg confirmed that FIR has been registered under Sections 465, 468, 469, 471, 472, 474 and 120-B of IPC against three Congress leaders and whistle blower following the direction of the court. First of all, investigation will be conducted and thereafter further action will be initiated, said Garg.
Advocate Ajay Gupta, representing Digvijays Singh, said “If we had submitted fake or forged CDs or hard disc in Supreme Court, the court would have taken action against us and not the third party as it has no locus standi in the matter.” We will challenge entire legal initiative which the third party (BJP legal cell) has taken in the matter, he added.
On September 19, Digvijaya Singh and other Congress leaders had approached the Special Court in Bhopal and submitted a petition running into 27,000 pages in digital form seeking prosecution of CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan, former CM Uma Bharati, five police officers of MP and others for tampering the hard disc seized in July 2013 from key Vyapam accused Nitin Mohindra’s computer. On September 22, Singh with PCC chief Kamal Nath, Supreme Court advocate Kapil Sibal, senior counsel Vivek Tankha, and whistle blower Prashant Pandey deposed before specially designated court of ADJ Suresh Singh in Vyapam scam.
