A district court here on Monday sent former Minister laxmikant Sharma to four days’ police remand after his arrest in connection with the Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board (MPPEB) scam.
Sharma was arrested on Sunday from his official residence by the Special Task Force (STF), which is probing the scam, following his alleged involvement in the contractual teachers recruitment scam.
The exam was conducted by MPPEB and Sharma was its Minister in-charge in his capacity as the then Technical Education Minister in the previous tenure of the BJP Government in the State.
Sharma was produced before the court of Judicial Magistrate Abhilasha Mawal, in the absence of Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) Pankaj Maheshwari, who remanded him to four days of police custody. The STF had demanded that the former Minister should be sent to police remand till June 23, but court declined its request and granted only four days remand. Opposing the remand, Sharma's lawyer contended that STF has already questioned the former Minister in connection with the scam twice and also quizzed him on Sunday.
“Since he has been already interrogated, there is no need for granting any remand,” he said. The STF said it has to match the names of candidates against whom his name was mentioned following recovery of date from a hard disk, which was sent by the agency to the Gandhi Nagar (Gujarat) based forensic laboratory. Hence, the STF needed time to question Sharma, but the court granted only four days remand.