Anand Rai is best known as whistleblower for exposing the

Vyapam scam The Vyapam scam was an entrance examination, admission and recruitment scam. It was functional since the 1990s and was finally unearthed in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh in 2013. The scam involved politicians, senior and junior officials a ...

. The

Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board Employees Selection Board (MPESB), popularly known as Vyapam (an abbreviation of its Hindi name Madhya Pradesh ''Vyavsayik Pariksha Mandal''), is a employees selection board of Madhya Pradesh, India. It conducts various tests for admission to p ...

(MPPEB), also known by its Hindi acronym "Vyapam", is responsible for conducting several examinations that are used to select candidates for educational institutes and government jobs. A nexus of politicians, MPPEB officials and middlemen carried out massive irregularities in these exams, allowing undeserving candidates to be selected.

Early life

He was born in a small village Mahendragaon in Harda district of

Madhya Pradesh Madhya Pradesh (, ; meaning 'central province') is a state in central India. Its capital city, capital is Bhopal, and the largest city is Indore, with Jabalpur, Ujjain, Gwalior, Sagar, Madhya Pradesh, Sagar, and Rewa, India, Rewa being the othe ...

to the family of a school teacher. He had been a member of

Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major List of political parties in India, Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the List of ruling p ...

(BJP), and was active in

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh ( ; , , ) is an Indian right-wing, Hindu nationalist, paramilitary volunteer organisation. The RSS is the progenitor and leader of a large body of organisations called the Sangh Parivar (Hindi for "Sangh family ...

(RSS) activities from 2005 to 2013.

Vyapam scam

Rai attended the MGM Medical College in Indore from 2003 to 2007. There, he noticed several irregularities that allowed the children of bureaucrats and

politicians A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...

to do well despite not attending classes or exams. He became suspicious in 2005 when he attended his MD exams and found that many of the top qualified students were from the same hostel block. At that time, he did not raise the issue as he was a junior. He then visited the state capital Bhopal to alert the government authorities. According to him, he saw a junior doctor Deepak Yadav and others manipulating medical exam forms, which made him suspect a scam. In 2008, he met his batchmate Jadgish Sagar (later found to be the kingpin of the Vyapam scam) at the wedding of a common friend. Sagar had left a suitcase at the wedding venue. When he did not return for a long time, Rai opened the suitcase to look for Sagar's contact information. In the suitcase, he found several Pre-Medical Test (PMT) admission forms and photographs.Vyapam scam: All you need to know about the whistleblower Anand Rai
/ref> After finishing his post-graduation, Rai joined the college as a faculty member. In 2009, he decided to expose the irregularities in the medical exams, and filed a complaint with MPPEB. The board formed a committee to investigate the matter and discovered that 280 proxy candidates had impersonated the actual candidates in the exams. Rai believed the scam to be much bigger, and suspected involvement of

and bureaucrats in it. After having filed repeated complaints and receiving no response, finally he filed a

Public Interest Litigation The chief instrument through which judicial activism has flourished in India is public interest litigation (PIL) or social action litigation (SAL). ''Public interest litigation'' (PIL) refers to litigation undertaken to secure public interest and de ...

requesting investigation into the scam in July 2013. The subsequent investigation, led by a Special Investigation Team (SIT), resulted in arrests of several politicians including the state's former education minister. He also filed a petition in

Supreme Court of India The Supreme Court of India (IAST: ) is the supreme judicial authority of India and is the highest court of the Republic of India under the constitution. It is the most senior constitutional court, has the final decision in all legal matters ...

to hand over the investigation of DMAT scam, a private medical college admission scam.Madhya Pradesh DMAT exam cancelled
10 June 2015, Tribune India. since 2005, He has filed more than 1000 RTI applications, including the clinical drug trials with the

Drug Controller General of India Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) is the head of department of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization of the Government of India responsible for approval of licences of specified categories of drugs such as blood and blood pr ...

(DGCI)

2015 Transfer

On 17 July 2015, Rai lodged a complaint with CBI against senior BJP leader and former Union Minister

Vikram Verma Vikram Verma (born 23 January 1944) is an Indian politician and a leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from Dhar, Madhya Pradesh. He formerly served as a Member of Parliament (India), Member of Parliament (MP) in the Rajya Sabha. He also ...

. He alleged that Verma had used his influence and power to get his MBBS student daughter transferred from a medical college in Uttar Pradesh to

Gandhi Medical College Gandhi Medical College (founded 14 September 1954) is a medical college in Hyderabad, India affiliated with Kaloji Narayana Rao University of Health Sciences. The college was originally affiliated to NTR University of Health Sciences. Histo ...

in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. On 20 July 2015, the Government transferred him from the health department's training institute in Indore to Dhar. Rai alleged that he was being hounded for complaining against Verma, and stated that he would challenge the transfer in court. Rai filed an affidavit in the High court and alleged that Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had asked him to stop the campaign against Vyapam scam and DMAT scam. In return, his transfer orders will be cancelled. The court then granted one week to the state government to file the counter affidavit. However, on 18 September 2015, the government cancelled the transfer orders without filing any reply.Vyapam Scam: MP government withdraws Anand Rai, wife’s transfer orders
The Times of India, 18 September 2015.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rai, Anand 1977 births Living people Activists from Madhya Pradesh Corruption in Madhya Pradesh Indian ophthalmologists Indian whistleblowers