Nursing college scam: Supreme Court upholds MP High Court order for CBI reinvestigation

Abhimanyu Hazarika

On May 30, the High Court had ordered re-investigation after one of the petitioners, had approached the Court regarding alleged bribe taken by the officers of CBI from suspected colleges for passing a favorable report.

The Supreme Court on Friday refused to interfere with the decision of the Madhya Pradesh High Court which had ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to reinvestigate 169 nursing colleges which are alleged to be running fraudlently [VNS College of Nursing and Another v. State of Madhya Pradesh and Others].

The CBI had earlier given clean chit to all the colleges but the division bench of Justice PV Sanjay Kumar and Justice Augustine George Masih was not impressed.

It observed that everybody seemed inclined to showcase that these nursing colleges were functioning absolutely normally thought the same was not true.

“It appears you all clearly tried to put up a facade that everything was functioning normally,” Justice Kumar orally remarked to the counsels appearing for appellant-colleges.

Thus, the appeals filed against the High Court order were dismissed.

“This dismissal order shall, however, not preclude parties concerned from raising all pertinent issues before the High Court in the pending proceedings,” it was clarified.

On May 30, the High Court had ordered re-investigation by the CBI after one of the original petitioners, the Law Students Association, had approached the Court regarding alleged bribe taken by some of the officers of CBI from the suspected colleges for passing a favorable report.

In February, the CBI had given a clean chit to 169 nursing colleges.

Taking cognizance of the issue of bribe, the High Court had directed that the CBI team will also include a judicial officer, who will be the Registrar of District Court of the respective districts where the inspection is to be conducted.

It had also said that even videography can be carried out if needed during the course of the probe, and the investigation shall be completed within 3 months.

The nursing colleges then approached the Supreme Court against the same.

Senior Counsel Meenakshi Arora, Maninder Singh and M Shoeb Alam appeared for the nursing colleges today before the apex court.