Cuttack: In a significant development in the Special Odisha Teacher Eligibility Test (OTET) paper leak case, the Orissa High Court has granted bail to all eight accused, including the former vice-president of the Board of Secondary Education (BSE), Nihar Ranjan Mohanty.
The court’s order allows the release of Mohanty alongside seven other individuals who were arrested by the Crime Branch for their alleged roles in the conspiracy to leak the examination paper. The other accused granted bail are data entry operator Jitan Moharana, Ramji Prasad Gupta, Bijaya Kumar Mishra, Jayanta Kumar Rout, Ajay Kumar Sahu, Prasant Kumar Khamari, and Sanatan Bisoi.
The bail has been granted with specific conditions. The court has directed all eight individuals to cooperate fully with the investigating agency throughout the ongoing probe. Furthermore, they have been prohibited from leaving the country without prior permission from the court.
The case pertains to the alleged leakage of the Special OTET question paper prior to the scheduled examination. The Crime Branch’s investigation had pieced together a detailed sequence of events leading to the leak. According to investigators, the plot was orchestrated by the prime accused, Jitan Moharana and Bijaya Mishra.
Probe revealed that Moharana, a data entry operator, allegedly accessed the question paper from the laptop of the then BSE vice-president, Nihar Ranjan Mohanty. It is alleged that he transferred the files using a pen drive. Following this, he purportedly printed the papers and transported them to Nayagarh, where they were handed over to Mishra’s brother. Investigators have stated that Mishra later transferred ₹2.5 lakh to Moharana via UPI as payment.
The leaked papers were then allegedly sent to Ambodala in Rayagada district. There, the accused Prasant Kumar Khamari, a teacher at a government upper primary school in Bhejipadar near Bhawanipatna, is accused of translating the questions using Google Translate and transcribing them by hand in an attempt to conceal the source of the leak.
The Crime Branch had previously conducted extensive interrogations, questioning Mishra’s brother, the driver who accompanied Moharana, and a woman data entry operator from the BSE vice-president’s office. The focus of these inquiries was to determine precisely how the official’s laptop was accessed and how the suspicious activity went undetected in the lead-up to the high-stakes examination.
With the grant of bail, the accused will be released from custody while continuing to face trial.
