New Delhi: A Fast Track Court at the Rouse Avenue Courts Complex in Delhi on Saturday sent the 14th accused arrested by the CBI in the NEET-UG 2026 paper leak case to 14 days of judicial custody, a lawyer said.
Sheshrao Bajrang Suryavanshi was sent to judicial custody after the expiry of his three-day custody granted to the CBI after his arrest on Wednesday.
The CBI earlier told the Court that Suryavanshi is allegedly linked to another accused, Shubham Khairnar, a career counsellor who was arrested from Nashik on May 12 for allegedly circulating the question paper on social media.
Last month, the Court took cognisance of the charge sheet filed by the CBI against 13 accused in the NEET-UG 2026 question paper leak case.
The court also accepted the probe agency’s plea to expand its investigation and collect evidence against additional suspects whose possible role has emerged in the CFSL report, a lawyer said.
The development in the specially designated Fast Track Court at the Rouse Avenue Courts Complex, constituted to exclusively deal with offences under the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024, and connected cases, paved the way for the CBI to dig deeper into additional suspects’ activities just before the now-cancelled May 3 NEET UG exam.
In its application, the CBI said that in the charge sheet, it had said that its investigation against some other suspects – apart from the 13 named in the set of charges – was continuing, the lawyer said.
The probe agency said its probe against the 13 charge-sheeted accused was over, but the alleged role of some others needed to be checked in the case.
On July 28, the CBI filed its charge sheet against all 13 arrested accused, alleging that confidential NEET-UG question papers were leaked before the May 3 examination through a network involving NTA subject experts, intermediaries, coaching operators and others.
The chargesheet claimed that three NTA subject experts entrusted with translating, back-translating, and proofreading question papers managed to take confidential examination questions out of the NTA’s office in Delhi by exploiting security lapses.
According to the probe agency, accused P.V. Kulkarni allegedly wrote down all 135 Chemistry questions and their answer options on small slips of paper and concealed them while leaving the confidential section.
The CBI said that there was no practice of checking or frisking experts while entering or exiting the confidential section of the NTA.
The Central probe agency alleged that another accused, Manisha Gurunath Mandhare, used her familiarity with NCERT textbooks to reconstruct questions after returning to her hotel room. At the same time, Manisha Sanjay Havaldar allegedly noted down Physics questions in brief after returning to her accommodation.
The CBI has also flagged shortcomings in CCTV surveillance at the NTA office, stating that only 20-25 days of CCTV backup was available and that there was no dedicated live-feed monitoring control room for the confidential section.
The agency has cited 360 witnesses, 422 documents and 43 material objects in support of its case.
The 13 accused were chargesheeted under Sections 315(5), 318(4), 61(2), 238 and 303(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023, besides provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, and the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024. The CBI had registered the case on May 12.
(IANS)
