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PMT scandal dominates Himachal House

Staff Correspondent

Chief Minister threatens to move privilege motion against some newspapers

SHIMLA: The opening day of the week-long session of the Himachal Vidhan Sabha was dominated by a heated discussion on the Combined Pre Medical Test leakage scam. The debate was initiated by Harsh Vardhan of the Congress and former Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal of the BJP.

There were heated exchanges in the House when Mr. Dhumal started giving a meticulous account of the scam after quoting in great details from press clippings. Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, who got provoked by the quotes, threatened to move a privilege motion against some newspapers.

The BJP leader challenged the Chief Minister to answer why the University re-employed the Controller of Examinations who had retired and why assignments were not withdrawn from him when he was retiring from a very important post.

He asked why the Vice-Chancellor of the University, whose removal he sought very vociferously, had refused to conduct any enquiry into the scam when the Government was insisting on a probe. "The Vice-Chancellor and his team had started threatening the parents and students who had brought the whole scam to the public eye."

Mr. Dhumal asked the Chief Minister to name the political affiliations of the people whose children got selected earlier although they had very poor academic records.

He read out in details the marks obtained by these students in their earlier examinations. These selected children belonged to same localities in the town, he informed. He said because of the embarrassment and the fear of getting exposed, the tainted students who were named in the enquiry committee report did not appear in the re-examination held on Sunday.

Praising the High Court's order constituting an enquiry committee and later ordering a re-examination, he said the faith of ordinary people in democracy and the rule of law had been restored.

He maintained that the Court had given enough time to the University and the State Government to accept the mistake and order a fresh examination after the leakage was proved.

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PMT scandal dominates Himachal House

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