Thane Police arrested three suspects on Saturday in a case of selling Maharashtra Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) question papers.
The Maharashtra TET 2026 exam, scheduled to be held on June 28, was postponed earlier in the day due to an alleged leak. The police laid a trap and arrested the suspects after receiving a tip-off that the question paper for the Maharashtra TET 2026 exam had been sold, officials said.
A case has been registered at Kungaon police station in Thane district and a special investigation team has been formed to conduct a detailed investigation into the matter, the officials added.
The TET exam was scheduled to be conducted at 1,028 centers across Maharashtra on Sunday. However, the test has now been rescheduled after police found evidence that some questions were leaked before the test.
What did those responsible say about the leak?
According to Nandkumar Bedse, director of the Maharashtra State Examination Board, the police received a tip-off early on June 27 that a few people in Bhiwandi had access to the TET exam question paper. Acting on a tip-off, Bhiwandi police conducted a raid and summoned officials from the examination board to verify the materials recovered from the site.
During the verification process, officials found that some questions in the seized documents matched the actual TET 2026 question paper. Following the discovery, a criminal case was registered and an investigation is underway.
“We have already announced the postponement and issued an official notification. This information is available on the website, and students have been informed that the exam has been postponed… There is no need to panic. They should continue their studies. They do not need to register again either,” the board’s deputy commissioner, Priya Shinde, told the media.
The council said in a statement that the examination was rescheduled because it was necessary to conduct a detailed investigation and it wanted to ensure that the examination was conducted in a completely transparent manner.
A new date for the examination will be announced later on the official website of Maharashtra State Examination Board.
The opposition targets the government
Congress and other opposition parties targeted the government over the TET paper leak issue. Reacting to the leak, the Congress said that the BJP government has become a “paper leak government”.
“Another paper leak. The TET paper has been leaked in Maharashtra. The exam was scheduled to be held tomorrow, which has now been cancelled. Under the BJP government, there is no paper that has not been leaked. This government has become a ‘paper leak government’,” the Congress handle posted on X.
CJP founder Abhijit Debaki, who is leading the protest at Jantar Mantar in Delhi against the alleged paper leaks, also reacted to the development in his home state, Maharashtra.
“TET exam paper leaked in Maharashtra. Is there any public exam left in this country that does not end with paper leak?” Debke wrote on X.
AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal took aim at the government over the alleged leaks, saying it had “spared neither exams nor temples”.
“Another exam has been leaked. They have spared neither exams nor temples. They are stealing everywhere. Some of their favorites say that it is the lower level people who are doing it, and the higher officials have no hand in it. But such large-scale chaos that is happening continuously every day is not possible without the participation of the higher officials. It is simply not possible that the money does not reach the top. The higher officials are buying off a lot of MPs and MLAs with this very money,” Kejriwal wrote on X.
Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Ambadas Dhanvi, who is part of the opposition in Maharashtra, said the state was also a hub for NEET paper leak and alleged that the government “learned nothing from it”.
“Maharashtra was also the epicenter of NEET paper leak. But the government did not learn anything from it. TET is a smaller exam, but the Maharashtra government did not succeed here… I think this paper leak is an insult to the Maharashtra government. This government cannot handle the TET paper. We are sad that Maharashtra has such a BJP government,” ANI quoted Dhanvi as saying.
