The most significant aspect of the Supreme Court’s directions regarding the Vyapam scam probe is the one seeking the Madhya Pradesh governor’s response to a PIL challenging a MP high court decision to quash an FIR against him. The court could so easily have ducked the issue on the grounds that the governor is a serving constitutional authority and so may be technically considered to enjoy immunity, placing him beyond investigation.
There would have been no precedent in recent legal history if the top court does indeed direct the CBI to investigate the governor’s alleged links to the Kafkaesque events in the seats and jobs scam that have led to the mysterious deaths of over 40 witnesses, suspects or kin of those involved in one of the most complex corruption scandals in Indian history.
The governor’s son himself succumbed to this nasty syndrome of inexplicable deaths of people linked in some way to the dubious recruitment scheme. Given the circumstances, only an investigation by a Central agency ordered by the top court can hope to get to the bottom of the mystery, although sceptics can point to the CBI’s generally poor record in securing convictions, particularly of the high and mighty. The SC is yet to decide whether it would monitor the CBI investigation. However, it has rendered signal service already to the essential democratic principle that no one is above the law.
The investigation itself would have to cover the same ground that the earlier probes by a special task force and a special investigating team had gone over. But, if the probe also goes into the allegations being made against the highest in the state on the basis of some Excel sheets said to have been discovered during investigations, another important principle of equality before the law would have been established.
For the moment, the heat is off the chief minister and his government as the probe has been taken off their hands. In stating that his government has no objection to the top court monitoring the CBI probe, the chief minister has taken a clear stand, going against standard legal advice to the state, that the probe should not be trammelled in any way.
The CBI has a lot on its plate, including the 2G and Coalgate scams. The Vyapam scam is unique in the body count it has thrown up and the top court has also put it on record that it does not want even a single death from now. While there is no guarantee there will not be other deaths, the top court’s intervention has injected a sense of objectivity into the investigation. If the court agrees to monitor the probe, the sense of disquiet brought in by a chain of macabre events might be assuaged somewhat. There is, however, a long way to go yet.
