The Indore Bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court on Tuesday directed the Shivraj Singh Chouhan led-BJP government to explain the frequent transfers of Vyapam scam whistleblower Anand Rai and his wife Gouri Rai.
The Indore-based doctor couple working with the State health department and has alleged that the State government is hounding them for Dr. Rai’s role in exposing the scam.
Coming down on the State, the Court questioned the need to transfer a whistleblower who is under police protection over threats to his life. A division bench of Justice P.K. Jaiswal and Justice T.K. Kaushal restrained the BJP government from taking any action against the couple till the State filed its reply. The government has two days to respond.
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A key whistleblower in the recruitment scam, Dr. Rai, also an RTI activist, was recently transferred to Dhar district against his wishes, just days after he lodged a complaint against a senior BJP leader from the area. Dr. Gouri Rai, a gynaecologist, has been transferred twice in the past month. She was transferred from the civil hospital in Mhow to Ujjain district hospital in July. A couple of days back, she was transferred to Dhar.
The couple is apprehensive in moving to Dhar, in the Malwa region, which is the home turf of senior BJP leader and former Union Minister Vikram Verma, against whom Dr. Rai had lodged a complaint. Neena Verma, the BJP leader’s wife, is the local MLA.
In his complaint to the CBI on July 17, Mr. Rai alleged that the BJP leader used his influence to get his daughter, who was pursuing MBBS in a college in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad, transferred to the Gandhi Medical College in Bhopal. “The Court has sent a strong message to the government that it cannot harass whistleblowers. But this is only a partial relief for us. In the next 48 hours we will know how this pans out,” Dr. Rai told
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His fears have increased after a key suspect in the Dental and Medical Admission Test (DMAT) scam in the State, Surendra Singh Chouhan, was shot at by unidentified people on Sunday night in an attempt to kill him. Dr. Rai is under police protection and fears moving out of his home turf would be dangerous for him and his family’s security.
Dr. Rai has said the persistent hounding of his family was to “demoralise and destabilise” him while also to scuttle the CBI probe into the recruitment scam. Dr. Gouri Rai was in Jaunary suspended for seeking child-care leave. Despite filing for a child-care leave she received no reply from her department for over six months. She then moved the Indore High Court. Though she was reinstated, she was last month transferred to Ujjain even as four other doctors suspended along with her were promoted.