SC to hear plea of Vyapam scam whistleblower against arrest in other case by MP police

The Supreme Court Friday agreed to hear on April 11 a plea of a doctor, a whistleblower in the Vypam scam, against his arrest by Madhya Pradesh police from a place in the national capital in connection with an FIR lodged for his social media post on alleged question paper leak.

A bench of Chief Justice N V Ramana and Justices Krishna Murari and Hima Kohli took note of the submissions of senior advocate Vivek Tankha, appearing for Dr. Anand Rai, that the accused had been arrested from a hotel in Delhi on Thursday night in the cases in which the other accused is out on bail on furnishing of a bond.

”The whistleblower of the Vyapam case has been arrested even though the principal accused is on bail,” the senior lawyer said while seeking urgent listing of the matter.

”We will list this on Monday,” the CJI said.

The FIR against Rai has been lodged in March this year by Laxman Singh Markam, an Under Secretary level officer who is working as an officer with the Chief Minister’s office in Madhya Pradesh.

As per the Facebook post of the accused, the question and answer keys of a state examination were leaked from the phone of the officer posted with the CMO and this led to the registration of the case.

The petition, filed through lawyer Sumeer Sodhi, has challenged the April 4, 2022 order passed by the Madhya Pradesh High Court at Jabalpur by which his plea seeking quashing of the FIR was dismissed.

The plea also challenged the order of the high court vacating the interim protection granted to Rai from any coercive action by the state police in the case.

“The present case highlights the instances where a mighty and vindictive state may leave no stone unturned in order to harass a citizen and abuse the process of law to convert a possible individual case of defamation into an FIR,” the plea said.

“The petitioner before this court is the whistleblower of the infamous Vyapam scam arising out of the state of Madhya Pradesh and therefore the State has had an axe to grind against him,” it said.

The Facebook post would reveal that Rai had merely questioned how the question and answer keys to the said examination had leaked on the mobile phone of one individual and therefore stated that the said incident required investigation by CBI, it said.

“The high court has failed to consider the malafide intent and haste in the conduct of the state police to lodge an FIR in order to persecute the petitioner at the behest of an individual who enjoys a public office with the state,” it said.

The petition said that Rai had received a screenshot of a mobile phone photograph by a name of Laxman Singh on March 26, 2022, from an anonymous source on WhatsApp.

“The screenshot had question papers and answer key of ‘Samvida Shikshak Varg-III Exam’,” which was referred to by him in his Facebook post, the plea said.

Earlier, Rai had played an active role in the alleged unearthing of the Vyapam scam which was later probed by the CBI.