In the NEET question paper leak case, the CBI’s charge sheet has revealed that, during the question paper preparation work at the National Testing Agency office, subject experts involved in the work stole questions and answer keys by memorizing them and writing them on slips of paper.
The charge sheet states that, while preparing the questions at the NTA office, they memorized specific questions and later, in the evening, after returning to the hotel room where they were staying, wrote them down.
Furthermore, officials said that the CBI had also included in the chargesheet several digital forensic pieces of evidence, including the attendance app data from the Pune residential society where Latur professor P.V. Kulkarni, who was an NDA chemistry subject expert, had been staying.
The ‘NEET’ examination for admission to undergraduate medical courses including MBBS, BDS, Siddha, Ayurveda, and Unani was held on May 3. Twenty-three lakh people took the exam across the country. In this situation, allegations arose that a model question paper containing the same questions as those in the NEET question paper had been leaked in Rajasthan ahead of time. In the initial investigation, it was found that this model question paper had spread across various states through WhatsApp and Telegram, following which the NEET examination was canceled. Subsequently, the NEET re-examination was conducted on June 21.
The CBI, which is conducting an intensive investigation into this matter, has arrested and jailed 13 people, including Shubham Kharnaar in Nashik, Maharashtra; Dhananjay Lokhande in Ahilyanagar; Manisha Wagmare in Pune; Professor P.V. Kulkarni in Latur; biology lecturer Manisha Mandhare from Pune; Mangilal Bilal, Vikas Bilal, and Dinesh Bilal in Jaipur, Rajasthan; student Yash Yadav in Gurugram, Haryana; Pune coaching center founder Shivraj Raghunath Madgaonkar; Pune Seth Hiralal Saraf Prasala school teacher Sanjay Havaldar; Pune doctor Manoj Shirur; and Pune coaching center physics teacher Abang Prabhu.
On July 28, the CBI filed a 94-page chargesheet against these 13 people in the special CBI court in Delhi.
In it, the CBI has included a large amount of digital forensic evidence, including the residential society’s visitor log app data showing that students and their parents visited Professor P.V. Kulkarni’s residence in Pune in April, before the NEET exam was held on May 3, as well as their mobile phone location analysis data and mobile call detail records.
Furthermore, the CBI has stated in its chargesheet, with evidence, the details of how three subject experts from Pune—Kulkarni, Manisha Mandhare, and Sanjay Havaldar—who were part of the NDA’s NEET question paper preparation team, exploited the loopholes in the NDA campus to steal and leak NEET questions for huge financial gain.
The NEET question paper was prepared at the NDA office in Okhla, Delhi. The three people involved in preparing the question paper wrote questions and answer notes on scraps of paper, memorized the easier questions, and later noted them down after returning to their hotel room where they were staying.
It has also been confirmed that these question notes, recovered during searches conducted at places belonging to them, match the questions that appeared in the NEET exam question paper held on May 3.
The NDA NEET question paper preparation work took place in the months of March and April. During these months, all three of them were involved in the preparation work on different days. As a result, they had enough time to return to Pune and resume conducting NEET coaching classes before the NEET examination on May 3. However, the CBI has stated in the charge sheet that this is not permitted under NDA rules.
Moreover, these questions were also circulated through intermediaries to candidates as far away as Rajasthan and Haryana. The key person behind this was a beauty expert named Manisha Sanjay Wagmare. She was the one who enrolled students in the training classes conducted in Pune in April on behalf of Kulkarni and Manisha Mandhare. The charge sheet also states that these subject experts were identified and arrested through Manisha Wagmare.