Vyapam Scam

By Smitakshi On Oct 6, 2026

Few cases in recent Indian history have been as strange as the Vyapam scam. It started as cheating in exams. It grew into a case with thousands of arrests, many court orders, and a long list of deaths that the public could not stop talking about. This article explains it step by step, in simple words.

The facts come from the Wikipedia page on the case, which collects reports from The Hindu, the Times of India, the Hindustan Times and others. Many people named in this case are accused, and the law treats an accused person as innocent until a court says otherwise. I have tried to say clearly what is proven, what is alleged and what is disputed.

Table of Contents

What Is Vyapam?

“Vyapam” is the common name for the Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board, or MPPEB. Its Hindi name is Vyavsayik Pariksha Mandal. It is a body set up by the state government of Madhya Pradesh. It runs entrance tests for admission to colleges and for many government jobs in the state.

Large numbers of young people write these tests. A report in The Guardian, quoted on Wikipedia, put the number at around 3.2 million students a year. A good rank can change a family’s life. That is why a fixed result is such a serious crime.

What Was the Scam?

The scam covered exams for medical college seats and for jobs. The jobs included food inspectors, transport constables, police staff, school teachers, dairy supply officers and forest guards. The Wikipedia summary says 13 different exams were involved.

Here are the main tricks, as reported.

Impersonation: A paid, clever person wrote the exam in place of the real candidate. The photo on the admit card was swapped.
The “engine and bogie” seating: A paid, strong student was seated between weaker ones. The weaker ones copied from him.
Altered answer sheets: In some job tests, OMR answer sheets, which are marked by machine, were taken out of the strong room and changed.
Leaked keys: In one test, the former exam controller is accused of giving model answer keys to candidates as photocopies.

Money passed through middlemen. A committee report in 2011 said that middlemen charged Rs 10 to 40 lakh per candidate. A lakh is 100,000. News reports said that one larger gang asked for even more.

How the Case Came to Light

Doubts had been raised long before. Cases of cheating were reported from the mid-1990s. The first police report, called an FIR, was filed in 2000 in Chhatarpur district. In 2004, seven cases were registered in Khandwa district. At that time they were seen as separate events, not as a single racket.

In 2009, fresh complaints came about the Pre-Medical Test, or PMT. An activist and doctor from Indore, Dr Anand Rai, filed a public interest petition. The state set up a committee. It gave its report in November 2011. It found that 114 candidates had passed the PMT through impersonation. Many were from well-off families.

The big break came in July 2013. On the night of 6 to 7 July, Indore police arrested 20 people from hotels. They had come to write the PMT of 7 July in place of local candidates. Questioning led police to Dr Jagdish Sagar, who was described as the head of an organised racket. He was arrested in Mumbai on 13 July 2013.

The Special Task Force and the Arrests

The state government formed a Special Task Force, or STF, on 26 August 2013. As it went on, the case spread from medical seats to job tests. By November 2013, the STF said that five job tests of 2012 had been rigged.

The list of those accused grew to include candidates and parents, middlemen, board staff and officials. A former state minister, Laxmikant Sharma, was arrested in 2014. He was held over the alleged teacher recruitment rigging. By June 2015, news reports said that more than 2,000 people had been arrested.

In 2014, the High Court set up a three-member Special Investigation Team, or SIT, to watch over the work of the STF. It was led by retired Justice Chandresh Bhushan.

The Deaths

The case gained worldwide notice because of deaths linked to it. A number of accused persons, witnesses and others died while the case was on. Many were young. Some deaths were said to be accidents. Some were illness, suicide or other causes.

In 2015, the STF gave the High Court a list of 23 people who it said died “unnatural” deaths. Media reports spoke of 40 or more. The state government rejected the idea that every death was linked to the scam. Its home minister at the time called the deaths “natural”. Dr Anand Rai said that about 10 of them looked suspicious and that the rest could be chance.

A CBI inquiry was later asked to look at both the cases and the deaths. I have not found a final CBI finding in the sources I read, so I do not draw a conclusion here.

The Supreme Court Hands the Case to the CBI

Pressure grew in the summer of 2015. Opposition parties demanded a CBI probe. On 9 July 2015, the Supreme Court ordered all Vyapam criminal cases, and the cases about the deaths, to be moved to the Central Bureau of Investigation, or CBI. India’s Attorney General told the court that the state had no objection.

The court did not say who would monitor the CBI’s work. I did not find a clear public summary of the final outcome of every case, so this article does not claim one.

Charges and Counter-Charges

The scam became political. Some critics said that people close to powerful leaders were protected. The state’s Chief Minister at the time, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, rejected this. He said that his government exposed the scam, and that only 228 out of 350,000 appointments in his term were affected. These were his statements and are not court findings.

A separate dispute came up over a spreadsheet kept by a board employee. The STF held one version, and a whistleblower put forward another. A government forensic lab found the STF’s version genuine and the other one forged. The whistleblower stood by his version and said that a private lab had backed it. Courts have to weigh such claims, which is why the process is slow.

The 2017 Supreme Court Ruling

On 13 February 2017, the Supreme Court gave an 83-page judgment. It cancelled the degrees of 634 doctors who got into medical college through the manipulated exams. The court refused to let them keep the degrees on condition that they do free social service. In its words, “fraud cannot be allowed to trounce, on the stratagem of public good”.

Why Honest Students Were Hurt

Behind each rigged seat stood an honest student who lost out. A seat in a government medical college is limited. When one is sold, a hard working candidate is pushed down the list. The 2011 committee also warned that some fake entrants could have graduated and started to treat patients. That is why the courts took the matter so seriously.

What Can Students Learn From It?

The scam tells us a few things. First, a fair exam system protects honest students, so people who see wrong must be able to report it safely. Second, whistleblowers need protection. Third, technology such as thumb scans and photos can help, but it only works when the people running it are honest.

If you are preparing for a state exam today, always use the official site of the board. Do not pay anyone for a promise of a seat or a job. Such offers are illegal, and they often turn out to be a trap.

FAQs About the Vyapam Scam

What does Vyapam stand for?

It stands for Vyavsayik Pariksha Mandal, the Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board. It runs entrance and recruitment tests in the state.

When did the Vyapam scam come to light?

Complaints go back to the 1990s. The wide scale of the racket became clear in July 2013, when Indore police arrested 20 people who were posing as candidates.

How many people were arrested?

News reports said that more than 2,000 people had been arrested by June 2015. This number includes candidates, parents, middlemen and officials.

How many deaths were linked to the scam?

The STF told the High Court of 23 unnatural deaths in 2015. Media reports spoke of 40 or more. The state denied that all deaths were linked to the scam.

Who investigates the case now?

The Supreme Court moved all the cases to the CBI on 9 July 2015.

What did the Supreme Court decide in 2017?

It cancelled the degrees of 634 doctors who gained admission through the rigged exams.

Final Thoughts

The Vyapam scam hurt honest students most. They worked hard for years while others bought seats. The case also showed how long and hard it is to bring a large racket to court. The best response is to keep exams clean, protect people who speak up, and let courts decide the facts.