A view of the CBI office complex, in New Delhi. Archive | Photo credit: The Hindu

On Friday, November 22, 2024, the Central Agency filed the fifth indictment against five defendants in National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET-UG) 2024 question paper theft case. The charge sheet was filed in the special court for CBI cases in Patna.

In its official statement, the central authority said that the chargesheet has been filed under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, including 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 109 (abetment), 409 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating), 380 (theft). , 201 (causing disappearance of evidence), 411 (dishonestly receiving stolen property) and under Section 13(2) compared with Section 13(1)(a) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (as amended in 2018).

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The five accused are Amit Kumar Singh, a resident of Dhanbad, Jharkhand; Sudip Kumar and Yuvraj Kumar, residents of Bokaro, Jharkhand; Abhimanyu Patel, resident of Nalanda, Bihar; and Amit Kumar, a resident of Patna. This brings the number of defendants charged in the case to 45, all in custody.

The CBI had earlier filed four chargesheets on August 1, September 19, October 5 and November 7 against 40 other accused. The agency took over the investigation from the Shastri Nagar police station in Patna on June 23.

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Names of candidates who allegedly benefited from the paper theft and names of MBBS students who had solved the stolen paper or had appeared in the exam as impersonators have already been identified and shared with the National Testing Agency (NTA) and the Ministry of Education.

The investigations revealed that a question paper of NEET-UG 2024 was illegally accessed from Oasis School, Hazaribagh, Jharkhand, on the morning of May 5 by Pankaj Kumar, acting in connivance with Oasis School Principal Ahsanul Haque, also the city’s NTA Coordinator, and Vice Principal Muhammad Imtiyaz Alam, who was the center director.

The central authority had earlier stated that suitcases containing NEET-UG question papers were brought to the school and kept in the control room on the morning of May 5, the day of the exam. Minutes after the trunks arrived, the principal and vice-principal allowed the alleged mastermind of the Bihar paper leak case, Mr. Pankaj Kumar, to access the room. Sophisticated tools used to open the trunk and access question papers were also seized, the central agency said.

During the investigation, it was found that Haque and Alam conspired with other accused to steal the question paper.