BHOPAL: Four minsters of Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s cabinet and four ex-ministers of the ruling party have reportedly come under scanner for their alleged role in a whooping Rs 4000 crore Dental and Medical Entrance Test (DMAT) scam.

MP DMET is an entrance exam conducted by Association of Private Dental and Medical Colleges (APDMC) of Madhya Pradesh to provide admissions for UG level programs in medical and dental courses in the colleges/institutes across the state.

Police officers privy of the information said they have received inputs on involvement of several high and mighty and its being investigated.

Recent of Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board (MPPEB) retired director Y C Uprit by the Gwalior has opened up a Pandora’s Box in this case. He has started spilling the beans on huge amount of black money in the scam, said sources.

Besides ministers, judicial members, police officers from the rank of station house officers (SHOs) to Inspector general (IGs) are among those who, the whistle blowers allege, are linked with the issue which may turn bigger than ‘MPPEB scam’.

“Prime Minister Narendra Modi should worry about black money floating within the country. If probe agencies like Lokayukta can collect details of students who got admissions in private medical colleges through DMAT and then their parents and their postings, the amount of black money pumped as fees and donations to the colleges will come to fore,” says Dr Anand Rai, first complainant in the DMET scam.

He black money to the tune of Rs 1000 flows in DMAT every year.

Dr Rai claims that scrapping of DMAT-2006 was tip-off an iceberg into medical and dental entrance scam. Kamal Patel was minister for technical education in that period. In view of the case's serious nature, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had in 2006 ordered that all complaints related to DMAT should be forwarded to the Justice Chandra Bhushan Committee formed to monitor DMET-linked cases.

“In view of the alleged role of influential political leaders, police are keeping the probe under wraps,” claims Dr Rai adding a CBI probe should be ordered to get to the roots of the scam.

Justice Chandresh Bushan who is heading the high court appointed SIT for monitoring the MPPEB scam was chairman of the SIT to probe DMAT scam in 2006.

Entrance exam-DMAT 2006, conducted on August 13 for admissions to private medical and dental colleges was cancelled in the wake of allegations of leakage of questions papers besides several other irregularities.

Private medical and dental colleges in state had approval from Centre and state government to fill 350 MBBS seats and 700 BDS seats during that period. And, high court monitoring committee had allowed Association of Private Dental and Medical Colleges (APDMC) to conduct entrance exam to fill these seats. Uprit was controller and treasurer of APDMC.

Credibility of this exam came under cloud after Bhopal crime branch seized incriminating documents, post-dated cheques and cash, from an employee of a private dental college at Bhopal.

On August 29, 2006 MP high court, Jabalpur directed state government to furnish 400-odd 'disputed' answer sheets of DMAT-2006 taking on record the Justice Chandresh Bhushan Committee's affidavit which was filed in compliance with its previous order seeking detailed reasons for cancelling DMAT 2006 on August 19.

The directives were issued by a division bench comprising then Chief Justice A K Patnaik and Justice S C Sinho had directed the state government while hearing petitions filed by APDMC and two students - Sanjay Kumar and Pawan Rao.

Complaints included that question papers distributed were not sealed like the procedure followed by MPPEB. Also it was alleged that Rajesh, a candidate from Hoshangabad, was forced to fill up OMR answer sheet with a red pen and separate arrangements were made for 15 students.

Also, some candidates were asked to fill up OMR answer sheet half way the examination by a pencil, the affidavit said.

Jabalpur bench of high court had in 2006 directed to state government to present answer sheets of 368 candidates, who used banned pencil instead of pen during the DMAT for admission into the state's private medical and dental colleges.

Hearing petition by Indore-based Sanjay Patni and other petitions challenging the cancellation of the DMAT, a division bench comprising the then Chief Justice Anang Kumar Patnaik and Justice Suresh Chandra Sinha directed to present the answer sheets. Petitioner's counsel N S Kale had told the court about 5,600 examinees had given the DMET. However, 346 examinees used lead pencil, while 22 used pen pencil to mark answers on the sheet despite instructions to use black pen only. The petition stated that some vested interests had raised question on the veracity of the examination by making controversial the issue of use of pencil by students by mistake.