NEW DELHI: The spate of spooky unnatural deaths of those linked to Vyapam recruitment scam in Madhya Pradesh has stopped completely since the Supreme Court ordered CBI probe into it and decided to monitor the investigations.

Petitioners – ex-chief minister Digvijaya Singh and Anand Rai – had alleged that 42 persons linked to the scam have died mysteriously during the investigations by state police, which had prompted the bench headed by Chief Justice H L Dattu to handover the probe to CBI and observe on July 9: “We do not want the number of deaths to go up even by one more.”

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On Friday, a bench of Justices Dattu, S A Bobde and Amitava Roy remembered what it had said on July 9 and said it had not read about any further deaths of persons linked to the scam.

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The CJI said: “I was wondering that from the time the court had ordered CBI probe into the case and decided to monitor the investigations, how come not a single death has been reported.”

Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, who appearing for Shivraj Singh Chouhan had volunteered on July 9 for handing over the probe to CBI, said the petitioners had alleged 42 deaths and that he had personally found it to be strange.

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“It worried me also,” the AG said recounting that the CM had instructed him to inform the apex court that the state government had no reservation in a CBI probe into the scam.

Appearing for the CBI, solicitor general Ranjit Kumar and additional solicitor general Maninder Singh informed the court that the petitioners have provided information about 34 deaths and the agency has taken up investigations into these cases to ascertain the cause and circumstances of the deaths and whether the these were in any way linked to the scam.

Kumar also informed the court that as directed by it, the agency has taken over all 184 Vyapam cases, including the 72 cases in which the state police special task force had filed charge-sheets, for investigation purposes as well as conducting the trial through its public prosecutors.

The agency submitted a 5-page probe status report to the court detailing the tasks undertaken by it so far after senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Digvijaya Singh, appeared to snipe at CBI’s lethargy by informing the court that though three months have passed since the agency took over the investigations, there had been no action on the ground as not a single arrest has been made.

After going through the status report, the bench said: “The CBI has detailed how it has examined many voluminous documents, questioned so many persons and conducted raids in various places. How can we say that they had not taken any action on the ground? We are satisfied with the progress in the investigations. It is a continuous mandamus (monitoring by the court). Let us see how it unfolds.”

Rohatgi, who also appeared for the Centre, detailed the steps taken by the government and CBI together to augment the officers’ strength in the agency, which is facing severe manpower crunch given the steady stream of cases entrusted to it by the courts and state governments including the Saradha scam and Vyapam scam .

He said the requisite strength for CBI would be in place by November-end. The court posted the matter for further hearing on November 23.