Little over a month after an RTI reply revealed that From the scam-tainted Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board, (or Vyapam as it is popularly known) spent Rs.60 lakh on its 12 lawyers for various cases, it has emerged that Madhya Pradesh government spent Rs 1.25 crore to “hire senior counsels to oppose the petitions demanding CBI probe into Vyapam scam.”
India chapter of anti-corruption body Transparency International (TI) has claimed that Madhya Pradesh government threw the rules out of window while hiring senior counsels.
“As the government’s standing counsels were already arguing these cases, why senior counsels were hired and paid high fees?” Ajay Dubey, member of TI’s India Board was quoted by PTI.
Citing the rules of the legal department, Dubey claimed that senior counsels can be hired only when the standing counsels and legal officers of the government express unwillingness to take up a case.
Dubey said he was determined to raise this matter with the Prime Minister’s Office and the Union Law Ministry.
Madhya Pradesh’s BJP government had first opposed the Vyapam scam to be investigated by the CBI.
The government’s stand was that the probe by the Special Task Force constituted by the state was moving in the right direction. However, the mysterious deaths of close to 50 people related to Vyapam caused huge national outrage and the government was forced to rethink its stand and agreed for a CBI probe. India’s Supreme Court then handed over the probe to the federal investigating agency last year.