Rot runs deep: Munnabhais rattle AIIMS

NEW DELHI: The hi-tech Munnabhais shocked the nation after their con job was busted at AIIMS on Monday, but this was not the first time the prestigious medical institution has been rocked by a scam. In May last year, another racket was unearthed in which candidates coughed up anything between Rs 50 lakh to Rs 1 crore to get through the PG entrance exam.This time the scam was clearly an inside job.
Three weeks back, CBI filed a chargesheet against eight persons, including the mastermind, Mahipal Singh, a graduate in radiology from AIIMS.
Singh had a well-oiled machinery in place and his accomplices lured candidates from UP, Bihar, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Haryana. Before the exam on May 8, 2011, the accused kept the passports, original certificates and blank cheques of candidates to ensure they got the money.
All candidates who paid Singh attempted only 10 to 40 questions of the 200 questions, but were still ranked high on the merit list. Singh manipulated the Optical Mark Reader (OMR) answersheets with help of an insider, Rajib Ghatak, who worked as a data entry operator at a private company, M/Hi Tech Graphics in Wazirpur.
This company was engaged by AIIMS for evaluation and scanning of OMR sheets. Singh would ask candidates to leave answersheets blank and remember their code numbers. This would be filled with right answers by doctors, who were paid hefty money. Eleven of 14 candidates who paid Mahipal Singh were ranked high on the merit list. Though AIIMS cancelled these admissions, several deserving candidates have been left in the lurch.
The agency had registered seven cases in the scam. CBI filed a chargesheet in December against eight persons – Mahipal Singh, Rajib Ghatak and Dev Raj, Sreekant Kumar, Mukesh Kumar, Mahamandaleshwar Singh Chakraborty, Kumar Nishant Amber (a candidate himself) and Dr Swatantra Prasad for criminal conspiracy, cheating, and forgery. Amber himself, despite answering only 40 questions, got 257th position in the general category in the AIIMS merit list.
CBI joint director, OP Galhotra told TOI, “There were 200 multiple choice questions in this exam which were to be marked on OMR answersheets with black ball-point pen provided by AIIMS. After receiving OMR answersheets of candidates, AIIMS authorities would hand them over to Ghatak and Dev Raj who were required to take images of OMR answersheets and provide them to sub-dean exams (AIIMS) after copying them on non-rewritable DVDs. Since kingpin Mahipal Singh asked all candidates to remember their OMR sheet numbers, he provided the same to Ghatak”.