Over 22.79 lakh students appeared for the NEET-UG re-examination across 5,440 centres.
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RAGU R
The CBI chargesheet in the NEET-UG 2026 examination paper leak scandal has revealed that confidential questions allegedly travelled from NTA-appointed subject experts to middlemen and finally to candidates, both physically and through social media platforms, including WhatsApp and Telegram, in lieu of bribes.
The CBI filed a chargesheet against 13 accused persons, who are now in judicial custody, before a special CBI court here on July 28.
There’s also a mention of a WhatsApp group called “FIFA World Cup 2026” that worked as a magnet for students to get enrolled in a web of operators who leaked papers. There were eight students in this group, along with a subject expert who provided them with questions that would appear in the NEET exam.
According to the CBI, Manisha Sanjay Havaldar, physics subject expert; Manisha Gurunath Mandhare, biology subject expert; and PV Kulkarni, chemistry subject expert, have allegedly emerged as the kingpins of the scandal. CBI said, “The experts concerned have full access to final sets of questions”.
The three Maharashtra-based experts were in touch, and from them, the leaked questions went to the second rung of a ring of middle persons and facilitators, and eventually to students in exchange for a bribe at different levels.
Manisha Sanjay Havaldar — resident of Laxminivas Apartment, Gadgil Street, Pune — slipped 60 and 66 handwritten physics questions to middleman Tejas Harshadkumar Shah, Chief Operating Officer at Dr Abhang Prabhu Medical Academy, Pune.
Manisha Gurunath Mandhare — taking coaching classes at her residence at Ganga Osian Park, Sukh Sagar, Pune — handed over biology questions to Manisha Sanjay Waghmare. She also got the Chemistry paper from Kulkarni and transferred it to middleman Dhananjay Nivrutti Lokhande for onward distribution.
Kulkarni passed on chemistry questions to Waghmare and Dr Manoj Bhagwanrao Shirure, owner of Shidhivinayak Hospital in Latur. Dr. Shirure paid Kulkari ₹5 lakh, which he then gave to Shivraj Raghunath Mategoankar, the managing partner of Renukai Career Centre in Latur.
The CBI stated that experts were provided with plain sheets inside the confidential section of the NTA main office in the NSIC building, Okhla, Delhi, for rough work during translation and back translation.
Kulkarni “used these sheets to note down, on small chits, all 135 questions of chemistry in brief and the answer options and took them out in a concealed manner.”
For easier questions, Kulkarni would simply memorise and write them down.
The chargesheet exposed a lack of adequate security measures at exam paper setting premises. It pointed out that there was no dedicated CCTV live-feed monitoring control room in the NTA office complex, because of which the activities of experts in the confidential hall went unnoticed. There was no practice of checking or frisking of experts during entry or exit from the confidential section of the NTA.
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