This story is from November 23, 2016

Vyapam scam: CBI submits sealed report on 'tampered' hard disks before Supreme Court

Vyapam scam: CBI submits sealed report on 'tampered' hard disks before Supreme Court
Report on investigations into Vyapam cases and related deaths were submitted in two separate sealed envelopes.
BHOPAL: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) team investigating the infamous Vyapam scam of Madhya Pradesh has submitted the much-awaited report on the "alleged tampering of hard disks and pen drives" before the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
Hard disks seized from Vyapam office and kingpins hold key to busting the multi-layered scam.
This time CBI has enclosed statements of scam whistle-blower Dr Anand Rai and police officers who were part of the team that seized hard disks and pen drives from alleged scam kingpin Nitin Mohindra.
Dr Rai has alleged that a senior IPS officer and some IAS officers were part of the syndicate which tampered the hard disks to save influential people involved.
Report on investigations into Vyapam cases and related deaths were submitted in two separate sealed envelopes, said sources.
The Supreme Court will hear the case on December 9 and one of the main charges made by the petitioners in the scam is that hard disks seized from Vyapam officials during investigations of case crime no 539/2013 of Rajendra Nagar police station in Indore was tampered with by Madhya Pradesh police.
Self-styled cyber forensic expert Prashant Pandey and former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh Digvijaya Singh had submitted in court that the crucial evidences were tampered to save influential people.

The status report has been submitted by Nishit Mishra, SP CBI, New Delhi. During the previous hearing on August 29, the court had directed CBI to obtain report from the CFSL, Hyderabad within a period of six weeks.
The report submitted by CBI SP Mishra reads - "Dr Anand Rai who has made similar allegations of tampering of hard disks was examined and also the report of M/s Truth Labs was analysed apart from examination of the expert of M/s Truth Labs. The findings of the CBI pertaining to investigation on aforesaid allegations of the questioned hard disks have been mentioned in detail in the status report which is being filed by the CBI in a sealed cover."
Whistle-blowers, however, claim their allegations have been vindicated by the forensic report. They claim if reports are positive, CBI will have to start investigations into the Vyapam scam from the beginning.
Lab authorities had earlier refused to hand over this report to the agency on grounds that the forensic test was ordered by Supreme Court and the report will be submitted before the court only, sources said. The agency had then moved an application before the Apex court, seeking access to the report so that they could take investigations ahead.
Self-styled forensic expert Prashant Pandey and former chief minister Digvijaya Singh had submitted in court that the hard disk was tampered to save influential people.
Madhya Pradesh's Special Task Force (STF), which probed Vyapam scam before the case was entrusted to CBI, had earlier tried to convince Supreme Court that petitioners were relying on a forged and tampered hard disk and excel sheet which the court could send to any forensic lab for the fresh examination.
Supreme Court had sought CBI's status report on Vyapam scam for the first time in September 2015 after senior advocates Vivek Tankha, Kapil Sibal and K T S Tulsi repeatedly said the agency was not making any headway into the probe and was just giving the excuse of manpower shortage.
A bench of Chief Justice H L Dattu and Justices C Nagappan and Amitava Roy had asked CBI to submit the status report by October 9, 2015. The order was complied with and the court was satisfied with the status of investigations. The case was not listed before the court thereafter.
On July 9, 2015 the court had asked CBI to take over the probe into Vyapam scam from July 13 but had refused to the request of petitioners, including former chief minister Digvijaya Singh, to monitor the probe.
End of Article
FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA