CAG flags appointments in Vyapam, state's "shadowy control"

The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has rapped the Madhya Pradesh government for "systematic subversion of rules" in appointment of director and controller of the scam-tainted Professional Examination Board (also known by its Hindi name,'Vyapam').
Government's "shadowy" control led to erosion of the Board's credibility, CAG said.
The CBI is currently probing the 'Vyapam scam', a massive admission and recruitment racket which came to light a few years ago and rocked the state's politics.
"The appointments of director and controller were made through systemic subversion of rules, resulting in undue favours to certain individual," CAG's report for 2016, tabled in the state Assembly today, said.

"Dr Yogesh Uprit and Dr Pankaj Trivedi (both accused in the scam, now removed from their posts) were appointed director and controller, respectively, on orders of the then minister (Laxmikant Sharma, also an accused) in contravention of rules," CAG said.
Accountant General Sourabh K Mallick said that as per the report, the state government "ostensibly" distanced itself from Board, but still maintained "administrative control".

This "shadowy control" led to a situation where there was "severe erosion in credibility of examination conducted by the Board", CAG report said.
The Board was set up in 1982 for entrance tests for medical, engineering, agriculture colleges, and polytechnics.

Mallick, who handed over copies of the report to media, claimed that state government did not make available Vyapam's records of 2015 and 2016 to the CAG, saying the Board was not a government body.
The CAG also faulted the government for giving the Board the responsibility of recruitment for government jobs. "A primary function of the government to ensure free and fair recruitments to its own services...Was jettisoned in favour of an institution (Vyapam), which was neither statutory, nor independent," it said.