Leaked NEET(UG) question papers took two routes out of Maharashtra – via Rajasthan, Haryana, and Kerala through messaging platforms like WhatsApp – according to the Central Bureau of Investigation.
Officials familiar with the inquiry have called this a “countrywide conspiracy” that involves subject experts, coaching institutes, and middlemen, The Indian Express has learnt.
On Tuesday the CBI filed a chargesheet in a Delhi court that named 13 accused, including Shivraj Raghunath Motegoankar, who owns the Renukai Career Coaching Institute in Maharashtra’s Latur.
Manisha Mandhare, a biology expert with the National Testing Agency, and Pralhad Vithalrao Kulkarni and Manisha Sanjay Havaldar, biology and physics experts with the NTA, were also named.
The others are Tejas Harshadkumar Shah, who operated the APMA Coaching Institute in Pune, and eight alleged intermediaries – Manisha Sanjay Waghmare, Dhananjay Nivrutti Lokhande, Shubham Madhukar Khairnar, Yash Yadav, Mangilal Biwal, Vikash Biwal, Dinesh Biwal, and Dr Manoj Bhagwanrao Shirure.
Investigators have focused on Motegoankar, whose institute has branches in Pune, Nashik, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Nanded, Solapur, Kolhapur, Akola, and other parts of Maharashtra.
Sources said Motegoankar was an active member of the network that procured and circulated the NEET question papers; for example, he allegedly procured chemistry questions for Rs 5 lakh and routed them via co-accused Dr Manoj Bhagwanrao Shirure, reportedly for the benefit of his son and other students.
Authorities recovered a mobile phone when searching Motegoankar’s house. A forensic examination of the phone led to the recovery of some of the leaked questions, as well as notes in his handwriting.
Sources said over 36 images were recovered, including five duplicates. These reportedly contained 132 handwritten chemistry questions. The metadata allegedly showed the images had been captured on a Samsung Fold7 on April 23, i.e., 10 days before the examination.
Prima facie, investigators found that approximately 111 of these questions matched questions from the NTA master sets for NEET (UG) 2026, sources confirmed.
The CBI chargesheet, it is learnt, also details the alleged role of Dr Shirure, a medical practitioner running a private hospital in Latur. Investigators said Shirure facilitated the procurement and onward dissemination of leaked chemistry questions at the instance of Kulkarni, also an accused.Shirure’s hospital premises were allegedly used as the venue for Motegoankar’s son to access the chemistry question paper in the third week of April, before the NEET exam. Shirure also referred two other doctors whose children procured the paper from Kulkarni, each allegedly paying Rs 3 lakh.
Kulkarni reportedly told police he first came in contact with another co-accused – Dhananjay Lokhande – in 2021 and conspired with Manisha Waghmare to procure and circulate the leaked papers.
The paper reached beneficiaries through Kulkarni’s network. A payment of Rs 5 lakh made for the leaked paper was traced to Motegoankar’s wife and was allegedly recovered from the residence of a Shirure family member, sources said.The CBI has found the first indication of the alleged NEET paper leak came not from an investigating agency, but from a May 7 email sent by a chemistry teacher, Shashikant Suthar, in Rajasthan’s Sikar, to the NTA, detailing how solved questions were circulating hours before the exam.
Suthar wrote that on the evening of May 3, shortly after the NEET examination ended at 6 pm, his landlord approached him with two PDF files containing question papers and asked him to compare them with the actual NEET paper.
Suthar found that the questions in the PDFs matched the actual paper. He then got the match independently verified by colleagues before alerting the NTA.
Questioned about the source of the PDFs, the landlord reportedly said they had been sent to him on WhatsApp by his son, a first-year MBBS student studying in Kerala.
“He (the student) told him that he had received the files on May 2 from a student who shared a room with him. The chain, as described in Suthar’s email, led to a man who had initially demanded Rs 40,000 for the leaked paper but later agreed to Rs 30,000, which was paid through PhonePe,” sources said.The email alleged that the man who had been paid sent 450 solved questions and answers at 11 pm on May 2, just hours before the NEET examination was scheduled to be held. “The account suggests that the alleged leak had reached students and intermediaries at least a day before the exam,” sources said.
