NEET-UG: CBI closes in on NTA paper-setting group, arrests botany teacher from Pune

AEndorse fellow member of the subject Testing office’s (NTA) paper-setting citizens committee has been arrested in the NEET-UG 2026 question paper leak case — a senior botany teacher from Pune who allegedly disclosed botany and zoology questions at coaching classes she conducted at her home in April, questions that the CBI says matched the actual examination paper — as the agency said the entire committee that set the paper and other senior NTA officers are now under scrutiny.Manisha Gurunath Mandhare, the agency detailed, used the same modus operandi as retired chemistry lecturer PV Kulkarni, who was arrested the previous day — unravelling an operation that now forces more than 2.2 million medical college aspirants to retake a test they spend years preparing for.“She was involved in the NEET-UG 2026 examination process and appointed by NTA as an expert. She had complete access to the Botany and Zoology question papers,” the CBI said in a statement.During April, she allegedly mobilised prospective students through co-accused Manisha Waghmare — a Pune beauty parlour owner arrested on May 14 — and held classes at her Pune residence where she disclosed questions from the papers she had access to.Waghmare, the investigation revealed, served as the common recruiter for both NTA insiders and the agency, in seeking her remand in Delhi on Saturday, said she had access to the paper from at least April 27, nearly a week before the examination was held, in “connivance with other accused” and NTA insiders.“During classes, Mandhare explained and disclosed various questions from Botany and Zoology subjects and made the students note down the same in their notebooks and also mark in their text books. Majority of these questions tallied with the actual question paper of NEET-UG 2026 examination held on May 3,” the CBI said. Mandhare will be brought to Delhi for further interrogation.Officials familiar with investigation, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said their inquiry has now revealed that “two sets of question papers — one handwritten and one typed — had been leaked from the NTA,” with Kulkarni and Mandhare responsible for each. The Chemistry paper is attributed to Kulkarni; the Botany and Zoology papers to Mandhare.“Investigation is continuing with the special teams and the investigation conducted so far has brought out the actual source of the leakage of Chemistry and Biology papers as well as the middlemen involved in mobilising the students who paid lakhs of rupees to attend the special coaching classes where the questions which would come in the NEET UG-2026 exam were dictated and discussed.”One of the officials cited above said the “entire committee that set the paper and other senior officers of NTA are under the scanner” and that more arrests may follow in the coming days.The agency is also investigating whether Kulkarni and Mandhare were involved in previous paper leaks.In Delhi on Saturday, the agency produced Kulkarni and Waghmare before a special judge in Delhi’s Rouse Avenue courts and sought their 14-day custody. The court of Special Judge Ajay Gupta sent them to 10-days CBI custody. While seeking their custody, the agency called them “part of an organised paper leak gang” and said both of them had destroyed the question papers after the exam on May 3.The arrests of Kulkarni and Mandhare mark a watershed in India’s long history of examination fraud.“This is the first time in paper leak probes we have found the source of leak at NTA,” a second officer said, requesting anonymity. “Once the paper was leaked and its PDFs were out on messaging groups, there could have been hundreds of beneficiaries. We will trace all of them but first we are working on the source of leak and their associates.”From the two NTA insiders, the paper moved through a chain of middlemen across six states before reaching students on the night of May 2. Investigators allege that coaching class notes formed the basis of a PDF of 500–600 questions that entered circulation through Telegram; Nashik-based Shubham Khairnar passed it to Gurugram-based Yash Yadav, who sold it to Mangilal Biwal — also identified in court documents as Mangilal Khatik — for ₹10 lakh, contingent on around 150 questions matching the actual paper. Mangilal distributed printed copies to three family members, friends of his son Vikas, and a teacher, Satyanarayan.Searches at six locations in the last 24 hours yielded incriminating documents, laptops, bank statements and mobile phones, adding to the digital evidence already under forensic examination.Nine people have now been arrested across five states in four days: Mandhare, Kulkarni and Waghmare from Pune; Dhananjay Lokhanda from Ahilyanagar; Khairnar from Nashik; Mangilal Biwal, also identified as Mangilal Khatik, Vikas Biwal and Dinesh Biwal from Jaipur; and Yadav from Gurugram.“CBI is committed to comprehensive, impartial and professional investigation in this case,” the agency said.