The Central Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday gave a clean chit to Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, and filed a chargesheet against 490 people in the Vyapam scam case in Madhya Pradesh, News 18 reported. The investigation agency said there was no tampering of evidence in the case.

The case is related to alleged irregularities in various entrance and recruitment examinations conducted by the Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board, also known as Vyavsayik Pariksha Mandal, or Vyapam.

On October 15, the investigation agency had ruled out any conspiracy behind the deaths linked with the scam. The investigating agency had said that the controversy erupted because the state police had included the names of dead people as accused in the First Information Reports that were registered in the case.

It said that of the 24 deaths linked to the Vyapam scam, 16 people had died much before they were booked by the state police in the case. The CBI said that the deaths took place either from natural causes, accidents or suicides before the scam surfaced, or they were because of genuine reasons after the scam was reported.

The Vyapam scam

Though FIRs in the scam had been filed from around 1995, the racket finally came to light in May 2012 when an invigilator at a test for veterinary colleges realised that one of the candidates was not who he claimed to be.

On investigation, the police found a long trail of such scams spread across various districts in the state.

In July 2015, the Supreme Court had ordered that all criminal cases connected with the Vyapam scam be transferred to the CBI.