CBI custody of two held in NEET-UG exam score manipulation case extended till Jun 16

Mumbai, Jun 13 (PTI) A court here on Friday extended the CBI custody of two persons held in the NEET-UG exam score manipulation case till June 16 after the probe agency said it needed to unearth the "larger conspiracy".

Sandeep Shah and Salim Patel, who are accused of demanding and accepting undue advantage to influence officials of the National Testing Agency (NTA), were held on June 10 and were produced in court during the day after their previous remand ended.

Shah, in conspiracy with other accused, was contacting parents of NEET UG 2025 candidates with the promise of manipulating their marks for money, as per CBI.

Shah allegedly demanded Rs 90 lakh per candidate and later brought it down to Rs 87.5 lakh after assuring admission to government colleges with the help of NTA officers, the agency said.

The CBI, through public prosecutor Mayank Singh, submitted that Patel has accepted Rs 32.50 lakh from one candidate and Rs 75 lakh through hawala from three candidates, while one of the candidates was taken to Noida by Shah.

Various documents such as hall tickets of candidates appearing for NEET were found in the mobile phones of the accused, while voluminous mobile data of the arrested accused needs to be extracted and examined, the agency told court while seeking five-day custody.

Defence lawyers Sujit More and Rakesh Singh opposed the CBI's plea saying the mobile phones of the accused are with the probe agency and nothing further needs to be recovered from them. They prayed for judicial custody of the accused.

The court said there was substantial progress in the investigation and noted there is need to confront the accused with 1600 pages of Whatsapp conversations. The court said these Whatsapp chats have names of candidates of NEET-UG 2025 whose marks were to be increased.

The special judge stressed that the matter and the consequences of the crime are serious and for proper investigation police custody is required to be granted.

As there is progress in the investigation, further police custody is justified, the court said. PTI AVI BNM