was set to investigate the Vyapam scam and more than 30 deaths allegedly linked to the job recruitment scandal, according to a ruling by the Supreme Court in 9 July 2015. Allegations against the Chief Minister In 2014, Prashant Pandey (aka "Mr. X"), an IT consultant hired by the STF, was arrested for trying to use the team's information to blackmail the Vyapam accused. Pandey then approached the Indian National Congress leader Digvijaya Singh, and claimed that he was a whistleblower who was being harassed for exposing the role of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan in the scam. He alleged that the investigating agencies had tampered with the contents of the Excel sheet recovered from hard disk of the scam accused Nitin Mohindra's computer. Mohindra maintained a record of the candidates' names, their roll numbers and the names of those who had recommended them. Hundreds of people were arrested based on the information in this sheet. Pandey claimed that the investigators had modified the original version of the sheet by removing the names of senior BJP leaders, including Chouhan, from the sheet. Digvijaya Singh then submitted a 15-page affidavit before the SIT, alleging that the investigators were shielding the Chief Minister. SIT took cognisance of Singh's complaint, and sent both versions of the Excel sheet for forensic analysis. The forensic laboratory reported that the Excel sheet available with STF was genuine, while Pandey's version was forged. Accordingly, Singh's submission was rejected as a forgery by Justice Khanwilkar in the MP High Court. Pandey stood by his version, and stated that it had been authenticated by Truth Labs, a private forensic lab. He approached the Delhi High Court for protection as a whistleblower, claiming persecution by the MP Police. He claimed that he first sent the documents to the BJP minister Kailash Vijayvargiya and the Prime Minister's Office; he approached Congress leaders only when he did not receive any response. Pandey also stated that he was getting threat calls from influential people. The Delhi court therefore ordered police protection for him in February 2015. However, it was withdrawn in mid May 2015. Chouhan hit back at his critics, saying that his government should be credited for the exposing the scam. He stated that only 228 out of 350,000 appointments made during his tenure had been affected by the recruitment scam, and unlike previous governments, he had conducted a thorough probe. Replying