NEW DELHI: A special fast-track court on Wednesday listed the CBI’s chargesheet in the NEET-UG 2026 paper leak case for consideration on August 3 and granted the agency three more days to file the remaining annexures, according to news agency ANI.The court noted that the chargesheet filed on Tuesday was not accompanied by the statements of witnesses or the list of documents. The CBI told the court that the records were voluminous and were being scanned before being filed.Earlier on Tuesday, the CBI filed a chargesheet against 13 accused, including three National Testing Agency (NTA) paper experts, two coaching centre associates, middlemen and several beneficiary candidates.The agency invoked charges of criminal conspiracy, cheating, criminal breach of trust and destruction of evidence under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), along with offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act and the Public Examination (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024.“The CBI cited 360 witnesses, 422 documents and 43 material objects in this charge sheet. All 13 chargesheeted persons are in judicial custody as on date,” the agency’s spokesperson had said.The CBI said it had attached digital forensic analysis reports, handwriting expert opinions and academic experts’ assessments of the leaked question paper.“These reports confirmed the role of the accused in circulation of leaked questions prior to the date of examination,” the spokesperson added.The agency took over the investigation on May 12 following allegations of irregularities and a paper leak in the NEET-UG 2026 examination held on May 3. The examination was subsequently cancelled, and a re-examination was conducted on June 21.The controversy snowballed into a major political issue, with the Cockroach Janta Party leading weeks of protests at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar. The agitation eventually culminated in the resignation of then Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan.Following the registration of the FIR, the CBI carried out raids at 92 locations across Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Haryana, Delhi and other states.According to the agency, its two-month investigation uncovered the alleged conspiracy from the source of the paper leak to the beneficiary candidates, leading to the identification of the entire chain involved.Among those named in the chargesheet are three arrested NTA subject experts—PV Kulkarni (Chemistry), Manisha Gurunath Mandhare (Biology) and Manisha Sanjay Havaldar (Physics).The chargesheet also names Manoj Shirure, a doctor from Latur; Tejas Harshadkumar Shah, a physics faculty member at Pune-based Dr Abhang Prabhu Medical Academy (APMA); and Shivraj Raghunath Motegaonkar of a Latur coaching centre.The CBI said it had also traced the money trail in the case and frozen several bank accounts, bank lockers and a demat account linked to the accused.
