The Central Bureau of Investigation on Thursday arrested five persons, including retired Orissa High Court Judge I.M. Quddusi, for their alleged involvement in a corruption case.
The five were arrested for allegedly enabling private medical colleges, to admit students to MBBS courses, despite the Supreme Court barring them from doing so.
Among those arrested are accused B.P. Yadav, Palash, alleged middleman Vishwanath Agarwala and "hawala operator" Ram Dev Saraswat. The accused will be produced before a city court.
The arrests were made late last night after a detailed search operation at eight locations, including the residence of Justice (retired) Quddusi in south Delhi’s Greater Kailash.
The CBI sleuths also recovered Rs 1.91 crore during raids including at Quddusi’s residence.
The retired judge has been accused of not only legally guiding the functionaries of a Lucknow-based private medical college, but also assuring them of favourable settlement of their case in the Supreme Court.
The case pertains to Lucknow-based Prasad Institute of Medical Sciences, which was among the 46 colleges barred by the government from admitting students for the next one or two years, for failing to meet the set criteria.
B P Yadav and Palash Yadav, who run the institute, had challenged the debarment in the Supreme Court earlier this year.
On August 1, the top court directed the government to consider the materials on record afresh, pertaining to the issue of confirmation or otherwise of the letter of permission granted to the petitioner college.
On August 10, the government passed a reasoned decision to debar the college from admitting fresh students for the two years – 2017-18 and 2018-1, and also authorised MCI to encash the bank guarantees of Rs 2 crores.
It was then that the college owners conspired with Justice (Retd.) Quddusi, one Bhawana Pandey and others to get the issue resolved in their favour.
According to the CBI FIR, they had met Justice (Retd.) Quddusi and Ms. Pandey through one Sudhir Giri of Venkateshwara Medical College in Uttar Pradesh’s Meerut.
It further stated that it was on the advice of Qudusi that the petition was withdrawn from the apex court on August 15, 2017 and a petition was filed in Allahabad High Court.
The CBI have also lodged an FIR against two IAS officers serving in Puducherry – former health secretary B R Babu and Narendra Kumar – who headed the committee looking into the admissions to medical colleges – for allegedly denying admissions to deserving students and selling seats to others.
