Medical admissions scam: CBI arrests retired Odisha HC judge, 4 others

CBI registered a case against them; conducted raids at 8 locations in Delhi, Lucknow, Bhubaneswar

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested retired Orissa High Court Judge I M Quddusi for helping an Uttar Pradesh-based educational trust barred by the government from admitting medical students, an official confirmed on Thursday.

A CBI official said that the agency along with Quddusi, arrested four others persons — B P Yadav, Palash Yadav, Vishwanath Agarwala and Ram Dev Saraswat on Wednesday night after questioning them in an ongoing investigation of a case.

The investigating agency had registered a case under charges of criminal conspiracy of the Indian Penal Code and Prevention of Corruption Act against them on Tuesday and conducted raids at eight locations in Delhi, Lucknow, and Bhubaneswar.

During the raids, including at Quddusi's residence in south Delhi's Greater Kailash area, the CBI recovered Rs 1.91 crore.

The CBI sleuths recovered Rs 1 crore from the possession of middleman Biswanath Agrawala who received the amount from a hawala dealer and the remaining Rs 91 lakh was seized from others.

Agrawala has been detained and could be arrested anytime, said sources.

The CBI FIR said B P Yadav and Palash Yadav were managing the Lucknow-based Prasad Educational Trust which runs the Prasad Institute of Medical Sciences.

The institute is among the 46 colleges that have been barred by the government from admitting medical students for the next two years (till 2019) because of substandard facilities and non-fulfillment of the required criteria.