This Article is From Mar 23, 2015

I Had to go Public When Real Documents Didn't Come Out: Vyapam Scam Whistleblower to NDTV

Forensic expert Prashant Pandey (centre), the whistleblower in Vyapam scam, and and Dr Anand Rai (right) spoke to NDTV.

New Delhi:

They are the ones who first named Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan in the Vyapam or Exam Scam - a multi-crore scam that involved government officials accepting bribes for offering government jobs to candidates appearing in competitive exams.

Forensic expert Prashant Pandey and activist and Dr Anand Rai appeared for the very first time in the public eye by speaking to NDTV today.

Mr Pandey told NDTV he had approached the Delhi High Court for protection as a whistleblower and the court had sent notices to all authorities.
Mr Pandey said he became a whistleblower in July last year, when he realised the Special Task Force was relying on documents that seemed to have been tampered with. "I initially thought the real documents would emerge, but I had to go public when they didn't,'' he told NDTV.

The excel sheet produced by Mr Pandey mentions the Chief Minister's name 48 times. But the chargesheet made by the Special Task Force relied on an excel sheet, which did not have the CM's name.

Mr Pandey's excel sheet has now been authenticated by Truthlabs -- a private forensic lab used by the Congress, which has demanded that the Chief Minister be made an accused in the case. The Congress has alleged that the investigating officers had tried to shield the Chief Minister. Mr Chouhan has said the allegations are baseless.

Responding to BJP allegations that the whistleblowers were paid off by the Congress, Mr Pandey said, "We also met minister Kailash Vijayvargiya and gave him the documents first, but he didn't do anything about it.''

The documents were also sent to the Prime Minister's Office, and only later, they were given to the Congress. "We just want the truth to come out,'' said Mr Pandey.

The Madhya Pradesh police also registered an FIR, or a First Information Report, against Mr Pandey for leaking information. He has called it vindictive action.

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