A court in Delhi on Tuesday asked former Orissa High Court judge IM Quddusi and six others to appear before it on January 9 in connection with a medical college scam. The Central Bureau of Investigation has accused them of criminal conspiracy and corruption by trying to influence the verdict in a case heard by the Supreme Court, PTI reported.

Special Judge Anil Kumar Sisodia issued the summons after taking cognisance of the chargesheet filed by the CBI against the accused. “From the perusal of the chargesheet, statements of the witnesses and the documents filed along with charge sheet, I am of the considered opinion that there is sufficient material to take cognisance of the offence,” the judge said.

Apart from Quddusi, the other accused are BP Yadav and Palash Yadav of Prasad Educational Trust, alleged middleman Biswanath Agrawala, alleged hawala operator Ramdev Saraswat, Bhavna Pandey and Sudhir Giri.

Prasad Educational Trust runs a medical college in Lucknow. BP Yadav has been accused of approaching the Supreme Court and the Allahabad High Court after the government barred the college from admitting students for 2017-’18 and 2018-’19. Yadav had allegedly approached Quddusi and Pandey to “get the matter settled” by manipulating “high-level functionaries”, the CBI said.

Quddusi is accused of corruption after he allegedly helped the medical college settle the matter in the Supreme Court. He and five other accused were arrested in September 2017.

Also read:

Explainer: What happened in the Supreme Court on Friday (and what is the MCI bribery case)?