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Nursing college scam: CBI suspends officer over bribery charge
CBI has named four agency officers, along with 19 others in its first information report in connection with the bribery racket
The Central Bureau of investigation (CBI) has terminated the services of its arrested inspector Rahul Raj and removed three more officers from its Bhopal office for allegedly accepting bribe from staff of Madhya Pradesh-based nursing colleges to give them a clean chit in the agency’s probe into irregularities in the functioning of educational institutions, people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
CBI has named four agency officers, inspector Rahul Raj, deputy superintendent of police (DSP) Ashish Prasad, and two Madhya Pradesh police inspectors on CBI deputation, Rishikant Asathe and Sushil Kumar Majoka, along with 19 others, including chairpersons and staff of nursing colleges and some touts, in its first information report (FIR) in connection with the bribery racket.
The federal agency has terminated Rahul Raj from services with immediate effect following its “zero tolerance” policy towards corruption, a CBI officer aware of the matter said. The agency has initiated administrative action against DSP Prasad and has written to DoPT to take further action. It has also removed Asathe and Majoka from the agency’s deputation and sent them back to the state police, the officer added.
“Rahul Raj and Sushil Kumar were arrested after being caught red-handed while accepting bribe. Ashish Prasad and Rishikant Asathe have been suspended but they will be arrested after the probe,” the officer said, requesting anonymity.
The action comes days after a CBI vigilance team from Delhi caught Raj, the agency’s Bhopal anti-crime bureau (ACB) inspector, red-handed on Sunday while accepting a bribe of ₹10 lakh from Malay College of Nursing chairman Anil Bhaskaran and his wife Suma Anil Bhaskar.
So far, 13 out of the 23 accused named in the FIR have been arrested by the agency for giving favourable inspection reports to nursing colleges in Madhya Pradesh in exchange for bribes collected through conduits, officials said.
A special court in Bhopal has remanded them in CBI custody till May 29.
CBI swung into action after inputs and surveillance by its internal vigilance unit indicated that one of the support teams constituted on the orders of the Madhya Pradesh high court to examine infrastructure in nursing colleges in the state was indulging in corruption by giving a clean chit to educational institutions in lieu of bribes.
The agency has found that its officers were allegedly collecting ₹2 to ₹10 lakh from each institute to give favourable reports after inspection, officials said.
The CBI officer cited above, however, said it was wrong to raise a question on the entire investigation.
“These officers, mediators and staff members were part of a team out of seven teams who were inspecting the nursing colleges. It is wrong to raise question on entire investigation because vigilance team has been keeping eye on all officers of other teams too,” the officer added.
In a three-part series in August 2022, HT had highlighted how ghost nursing colleges were being run in Madhya Pradesh for providing degrees to students. The colleges were being run only on papers without staff, students, teachers and 100-bed hospitals — a mandatory requisite to get recognition.
In September last year, the Madhya Pradesh high court ordered a CBI probe into the matter.
CBI has inspected 308 out of the total 364 nursing colleges for which the high court had issued the direction to conduct probe. In its probe, CBI found a total 169 colleges suitable to run the nursing course, 74 colleges “deficient with minimal problems” that can be rectified and remaining 65 colleges have been found unsuitable to run nursing courses.
However, whistle-blower and petitioner in the nursing scam case, Vishal Baghel said: “We will move application before the high court against this corruption because nursing colleges are putting all the efforts to save their business of crore of rupees that is being run for years.”
