- By Ritika Mishra
- Sat, 08 Aug 2026 08:28 AM (IST)
- Source:JND
- Three NTA subject experts orchestrated NEET-UG paper leak.
- Major security lapses at NTA facilitated the exam fraud
- Experts used chits, NCERT, WhatsApp for question leaks.
As the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) intensifies its probe into the NEET-UG paper leak case, major security lapses have surfaced at the highest levels of the examination process. According to the agency’s charge sheet, the leak was orchestrated not from a printing press, but by three National Testing Agency (NTA)-panel subject experts, identified as Professor P.V. Kulkarni of Chemistry, Professor Manisha Gurunath Mandhare of Botany-Zoology (Zoology), and Professor Manisha Sanjay Havaldar of Physics contracted to prepare, translate, and proofread the exam papers.
Lapses In Security
The CBI said, the question paper setting, translation, and back-translation work were carried out in a secure environment at the NTA's Okhla building. However, there was no system for frisking or physical search of the experts upon entry and exit. The agency also found that the NTA office did not have a dedicated control room with live CCTV monitoring to continuously monitor the experts' activities.
Secret WhatsApp Group
The investigating officials stated that the accused had created a WhatsApp group titled FIFA World Cup 2026 to conspire against exam fraud and paper leaks. The Pune-based accused had created this group to discuss special biology classes and post-exam evaluations.
The CBI gathered the materials recovered from candidates and middlemen examined by an expert committee from Delhi University. According to the committee, a large portion of the leaked material matched the Kailash, Shivalik, Set 2, and Set 3 questions of the NEET-UG 2026. According to the investigating agency, the question sets to which the relevant experts had access had a match rate of up to 85 per cent, while the match rate was the lowest for those to which they did not have access.
What Did The Professors Do?
The chargesheet says that the three teachers were provided with rough sheets during the making of the question paper. Officials say that Kulkarni took advantage of this. He jotted down 135 chemistry questions and their answer options on small chits and smuggled them out.
It is alleged that Kulkarni memorised easy questions and, after completing his day's work, returned to the hotel to rewrite them. He was also involved in the back-translation of three sets. According to the CBI, the chemistry questions in the leaked material later recovered most closely matched the same sets to which Kulkarni had access.
Manisha Gurunath Mandhre was involved in English-to-Marathi translation and back-translation for botany and zoology. According to the CBI, she would return to the hotel after finishing her day's work and mark relevant paragraphs in NCERT textbooks.
Physics expert Manisha Sanjay Havaldar allegedly took brief notes on questions after her daily shift. According to the CBI, she later provided 68 physics questions, spread over 16 pages, to the mother of a candidate. The investigating agency conducted a forensic examination of the seized material. The government's questioned document examiner's report linked the handwriting of the 68 physics questions to Havaldar and co-accused Tejas Shah.