Madhya Pradesh High Court also rejected the Congress leader Digvijay Singh's petition for CBI probe and instead ordered setting up of a special investigation team (SIT) to act as a watchdog for the court. The SIT is a three-member team chaired by Justice Chandresh Bhushan, a retired Judge of the Madhya Pradesh High Court. During 2014-2015, the scam was investigated by the STF under the supervision of SIT. On 7 July 2015, after controversy about increasing number of allegedly suspicious deaths, Chouhan informed media that he will write to High Court of Madhya Pradesh requesting to order a CBI probe into the scam. On the same day, the opposition National Congress Party requested for resignation of Chouhan to allow fair probe into the scam. Application was filed before the High Court to transfer the investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which however ordered to await the decision of the Supreme Court on similar applications. On 9 July 2015, the Attorney General for India told Supreme Court that State of Madhya Pradesh had no objection whatsoever for transferring the investigation to the CBI, upon which the Supreme Court ordered to transfer the 'criminal cases related to the scam and also the cases related to deaths allegedly linked with scam to the CBI, country's premier investigating agency. However who will monitor the investigation process was not announced. Key arrests By June 2015, more than 2000 people had been arrested in connection with the scam. Politicians and bureaucrats Laxmikant Sharma, ex-Education Minister (M.P) Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) leader Laxmikant Sharma was the in-charge of MPPEB in his capacity as the state's Technical Education Minister. He was initially arrested for his involvement in the contractual teachers recruitment scam, based on the information recovered from the Excel sheet maintained by Nitin Mohindra. Later, he was also booked for irregularities in the constables recruitment examinations; according to the STF, he recommended names of at least 15 candidates for recruitment as constables. He resigned from BJP in June 2014, after being sent to four days police remand. Sharma claimed innocence, placing the blame on his officer OP Shukla, and pointed out that his own daughter had failed PMT twice. O. P. Shukla He was posted as Officer on Special Duty (OSD) with then Technical Education Minister Laxmikant Sharma. Soon after the investigations gained momentum, he went underground and surrendered two months after the investigation team