BHOPAL: The Madhya Pradesh High Court (Gwalior Bench) has issued notices to several top-ranking police and administrative officials, including the Principal Secretary (Home), Director General of Police (DGP), and Additional Director General (Complaints), in connection with a criminal case lodged against Vyapam scam whistleblower Ashish Kumar Chaturvedi and his family.

The officials have been directed to file their replies within two weeks.The court action follows a writ petition (WP No 6532/2025) filed by Chaturvedi, his father Om Prakash Sharma, and mother Vinita Sharma, through senior advocate D P Singh. The petition alleges that the FIR (Crime No. 114/2025) registered against them was a result of “abuse of power” and a “malicious conspiracy” orchestrated under the guise of executing a witness production warrant.Chaturvedi, a key witness in multiple Vyapam-related cases, contends that police personnel forcibly entered his Gwalior residence on 29 March 2025, physically assaulted him, and paraded him to the police station as if he were a hardened criminal. Despite his status as a protected whistleblower — granted police security by the State Security Committee since 2014 — he was allegedly beaten, humiliated, and forcibly injected with a substance at a trauma centre, resulting in severe health complications.

The petition points to serious procedural and ethical violations by police officials, including the SHO of Jhansi Road, a sub-inspector (who later became the complainant in the FIR), and others allegedly acting under the instructions of senior officers who had previously been accused by Chaturvedi of corruption, extortion, and other unlawful activities.Notably, the FIR was lodged just hours after the incident, and Sub-Inspector Sharma reportedly sought medical treatment not at a government hospital but at Parivar Super Specialty Hospital, where one of the directors is himself an accused in the Vyapam scam.

Chaturvedi is a prosecution witness in several such cases. This, the petition claims, further exposes the “collusion” and retaliatory nature of the complaint.The petition includes medical reports, CCTV footage requests, and allegations of police tampering, suggesting that the arrest and FIR were part of a systematic effort to intimidate and silence the whistleblower. Chaturvedi’s family was also named in the FIR, adding to the claim that the entire household was targeted.Chaturvedi has also alleged that he was treated inhumanely — including being injected in the hip with an unknown substance that later caused painful swelling and restricted movement — and that these actions violated his fundamental rights, including the right to privacy and protection as a government-recognised whistleblower.“It was a witness warrant and they treated Chaturvedi like a criminal. Moreover, the warrant was executed almost 15 days ahead of the hearing in court against set norms,” says his advocate.