A Delhi court on Thursday sent five accused in the alleged NEET papers leak case to police custody for seven days, saying the allegations revealed the role of an “organised gang” involved in leaking and circulating secret examination papers for financial gain.
Special Judge Ajay Gupta allowed the CBI’s request to interrogate Yash Yadav, Mangilal Khatik, Vikash Bewal, Dinesh Bewal, and Shubham Madhukar Khernar for seven days.
“There is a larger conspiracy angle in this case and the investigation is in its initial stage and custody of the accused has been sought in order to unravel the entire conspiracy and also arrest all the active members of this organized paper leaking gang and also to recover all relevant incriminating materials,” the court said in its order.
The judge said the allegations reflected a wider conspiracy, and custodial interrogation was necessary to ascertain the source of the leak and identify other people involved.
“The NEET 2026 exam was conducted on May 3, 2026. However, it is alleged that before the scheduled date of the exam, the question paper which contained a large number of the same questions (which also appeared in the NEET 2026 exam) was leaked and circulated in an organized manner for financial gain,” the court said.
According to the CBI, the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET-UG) conducted on May 3 was allegedly hacked after secret question papers were distributed in PDF form via WhatsApp before the exam.
Representing the CBI, Special Public Prosecutor Neetu Singh stated that accused Shubham Khernar purchased the leaked paper from a person in Pune, who obtained it through a contact at the National Testing Agency (NTA), and facilitated its transfer to co-accused Yash Yadav.
The CBI alleged that Yadav then entered into a transaction worth… $10 lakh along with the accused Mangilal Khatik and the leaked materials were distributed to the candidates and other applicants in the examination.
Requesting detention, the agency said several incriminating conversations had been deleted, mobile phones of the accused had been seized and required forensic examination.
“Their detention is required to unravel the larger conspiracy and identify officials of NTA and other departments, who were involved in leaking the NEET UG 2026 pre-examination paper,” SPP Singh submitted before the court.
Opposing the detention of the five defendants, the defense lawyer asserted that the arrests were illegal and that documentary evidence had already been collected.
