AIIMS paper leak: Delhi HC asks Centre to reply on plea for probe

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court today sought response of the Centre, AIIMS and the CBI on a plea seeking a court-monitored probe into alleged illegalities and irregularities during the AIIMS MBBS entrance examination held this year.

A bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar specifically directed the CBI to place before it the agency's status report within a week on the plea which also sought directions to AIIMS to quash the result declared on June 15 for the exam held on May 28.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for petitioner Dr Anand Rai, submitted that the results be only quashed if investigation "reveals that the entrance examination has been entirely and irreversibly vitiated."

Rai, who claims to be a whistleblower in the Vyapam scam case, moved the high court also seeking direction to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) to produce before the court the finding of the institute's committee which was constituted for conducting inquiry into the complaints regarding the conduct of the examination.

Rai had on May 31 alleged that the question papers of this year's entrance exam for MBBS course of the AIIMS were leaked.

In his petition filed through advocate Harsh Parashar, Rai, who had also alleged that AIIMS MBBS seats were being "sold", has sought direction to AIIMS to conduct fresh entrance examination for admission to the MBBS course for the academic session 2017, if the exam is found to be entirely and irreversibly vitiated after investigations.

"The questions obtained through such unlawful means were subsequently solved by solvers present outside the examination centres and the answer key was circulated throughout India to the beneficiary candidates while during the examination," the plea said.

"The petitioner was informed of the use of such illegal means through his own network of informers, whereby he was able to obtain more than 50 questions that were asked in the evening shift of the entrance examination held on May 28, 2017," it said. As per Rai, the exam was held in two shifts- from 9 AM to 12.30 PM and 3 PM to 6.30 PM