The Central Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday arrested two more people linked to the NEET question paper leak case. The two men, Pankaj Kumar and Raju Singh were arrested from Patna and Jabalpur respectively.
Both Kumar and Singh are from Jharkhand’s Hazirabagh and had allegedly stolen and circulated the leaked question papers of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET). The CBI, which probing the irregularities in the medical exam, has made 60 arrests so far.
The first arrest involving the NEET paper leak case was made on June 27 where two men from Patna, Manish Prakash and Ashutosh Kumar, were detained by the CBI. Apart from Bihar, the probe agency has also arrested people from Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.
What did the newly arrested men do?
According to media reports, Kumar was part of the paper leak mafia and allegedly stole the question papers while Raju Singh helped him distribute them.
A report by NDTV says that Pankaj Kumar aka Aaditya was a civil engineer who graduated from NIT Jamshedpur in 2017. Raju was Pankaj’s accomplice.
SC on NEET paper leak
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court on Monday issued notices to private parties on a batch of pleas filed by the National Testing Agency (NTA) seeking the transfer of cases pending against it in various high courts on the NEET-UG row to the top court to avoid multiplicity of litigations.
Advocate Vardhaman Kaushik, appearing for the NTA, urged a bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justice JB Pardiwala on Monday that the fresh batch of pleas be also transferred to the apex court as they pertained to the same issue.
“Issue notice and tag,” the bench said, adding that these pleas will also be taken up together with the pending petitions on the NEET-UG row on July 18.
The NTA also urged the bench to stay the pending proceedings in various high courts.
The CJI said once the Supreme Court has issued notices on transfer petitions, the high courts, procedurally, do not proceed with the hearing. The bench asked the NTA counsel to bring this to the notice of the high courts concerned.
The NEET row so far
Last week, the CBI revealed that the NEET-UG question paper was first leaked in Jharkhand’s Hazaribagh, after which they found their way to Bihar.
The National Testing Agency, on the other hand, has told the Supreme Court that there is no evidence that question papers went missing. The Supreme Court is currently hearing the NEET controversy case.
In its affidavit to the apex court, NTA said, “No question paper was found missing in any Trunk. Each question paper has a unique serial number and was assigned to a particular candidate. No locks were found broken. The reports from NTA Observers did not report anything adverse. The CCTV coverage in the Command Centre was constantly monitored. No untoward incident or any pointer to paper leakage was observed.”
With inputs from PTI
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CBI arrests two involved in stealing, circulating NEET-UG question paper
