BHOPAL: The very first day of hearing of a case in the Vyapam scam pertaining to the recruitment of constables through the Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board (MPPEB) hit a dead-end on Wednesday. The Special Task Force (STF) probing the scam told the court that the key witness is dead.

Witness No. 1 in Vyapam's police constable recruitment scam, Sanjay Singh Yadav, a resident of Balia (UP) had died some time ago during his treatment at a private hospital in Bhopal, the STF informed the court, producing his death certificate. Yadav, who was staying in Bhopal's Jawahar Chowk area, was a witness against three accused -Azaruddin, Naeem and Kaseem -all residents of Hamirpur in UP and accused of rigging the examinations.

Meanwhile, agency reports said that the chairman of Madhya Pradesh High Court Bar Association, Adarsh Munni Trivedi, who had in the past represented petitioners seeking a CBI probe into the Vyapam scam, could not appear before the high court in Jabalpur on Wednesday as he took ill and his family suspected "an attempt at food poisoning". Trivedi was going to appear in another PIL about rigged admissions to private medical colleges.

"My father fell sick in the early hours of Tuesday after consuming mangode (a fried snack made from lentils and grams) that someone had placed on the table in his office. We keep snacks in our office and my father ate a piece thinking that a family member or a client had brought them," said Ashish, his elder son.

Ashish, a lawyer, said the family suspected someone to have placed the snacks at the office intending to harm his father as advocate Trivedi was the counsel of former MLA Paras Saklecha, who has moved the high court demanding a CBI inquiry into Dental Medical Admission Test (DMAT) for private medical colleges.

