The CBI discovered that the very subject experts hired to write the medical entrance exam dictated exact chemistry and biology questions to paying students.

New Delhi, May 16 — Two subject experts hired by the National Testing Agency to set the NEET-UG 2026 question papers used their insider access to run secret coaching sessions where they dictated exact exam questions to paying students. The Central Bureau of Investigation has now arrested Pune-based chemistry lecturer P.V. Kulkarni and senior botany teacher Manisha Gurunath Mandhare as the undisputed masterminds behind the leak that has wrecked the academic plans of 22 lakh medical aspirants. They couldn’t have pulled it off without glaring institutional blind spots at the highest levels of India’s testing infrastructure.

The CBI detained Mandhare in Delhi on Saturday following sustained interrogation, while field officers picked up Kulkarni earlier this week in Pune. Both educators held active, cleared positions as NTA panel members. Mandhare worked at Modern College of Arts, Science and Commerce in Pune’s Shivajinagar area and spent the last half-decade contributing directly to NEET question papers. Kulkarni, a native of Latur, boasts over three decades in academia. So how does an impregnable national exam system allow the very people writing the test to simultaneously run private tuitions for it? That’s the primary question investigators are now trying to answer.

According to the CBI’s official case files, Kulkarni and Mandhare didn’t build their illicit client list alone. During April 2026, they allegedly mobilised prospective medical students through another Pune resident, Manisha Waghmare, who runs a local beauty salon. The agency arrested Waghmare on Thursday. Desperate parents paid several lakhs of rupees to secure spots for their children in exclusive coaching sessions held directly inside the teachers’ residences. They weren’t just guessing the syllabus; they were selling the exact blueprints.

The instruction method proved brazenly simple. The CBI stated that the educators stood in front of the selected aspirants and dictated multiple-choice questions, specific options, and the correct answers. Students marked these crucial questions in their textbooks and filled their notebooks with the exact material they would face weeks later. When investigators raided the properties and compared the seized notes with the actual May 3 examination, they found a flawless match. The compromised material included exactly 45 chemistry questions and nearly 90 biology questions. Out of 180 total questions on the exam, the insiders leaked enough to guarantee a top-tier score. They’ve essentially handed over the entire science section to the highest bidders.

The National Testing Agency initially denied any foul play. On May 10, just days before the government ordered a central probe, the NTA released a public statement claiming the examination concluded under a strict security protocol. They dismissed the early reports from Rajasthan as isolated, localized irregularities. It wasn’t until the mounting physical evidence became impossible to ignore that the Ministry of Education intervened and stripped the NTA of control over the narrative.

The leak network hasn’t stayed confined to Maharashtra. Over the last 48 hours, CBI teams executed coordinated raids across 14 locations nationwide to seize laptops, hard drives, mobile phones, and bank statements. Heavily armed officers secured premises in Delhi, Jaipur, Gurugram, Nashik, Pune, and Ahilyanagar. Authorities currently hold nine key operators in custody. A special Delhi court has already remanded five of those accused to seven days of intensive police custody, giving interrogators a critical window to map the entire syndicate before the trail goes cold.

The agency has identified distinct, well-funded nodes in the distribution network. While the Pune professors supplied the raw questions, the paper travelled fast across state lines. Officers arrested Ayurveda practitioner Dhananjay Lokhande in Ahilyanagar, tracking a path that eventually reached massive coaching hubs in Rajasthan. Sikar, a city that runs entirely on the dreams of medical aspirants, served as the primary distribution ground. Brokers circulated the actual exam questions under the guise of high-probability guess papers. It’s a classic hub-and-spoke model of corruption, functioning right under the noses of local authorities.

The Rajasthan link exposes a deeper, more systemic rot. The CBI arrested Mangi Lal and Dinesh Biwal, relatives from Jaipur, after taking them over from the state’s Special Operations Group. Interrogations revealed a clear chain of custody. Nashik resident Shubham Khairnar provided the compromised paper to Gurugram native Yash Yadav. Yadav, leveraging a connection made at a Sikar coaching centre, forwarded the document to Mangi Lal to secure an unfair advantage for Lal’s younger son. Police sources confirm this specific family didn’t just buy the 2026 paper. Investigators allege they possess a documented history of procuring and selling medical entrance exams to desperate candidates in previous years.

And the digital forensics are just beginning. Investigators are tracking complex financial trails to determine exactly how much money changed hands across these state borders. They are pulling bank records to see if the Pune professors pocketed the cash directly or funneled it through shell accounts. More critically, the CBI wants to know whether other NTA officials looked the other way while the papers walked out the door. We won’t know the full scale of the commercial enterprise until cyber experts decrypt the dozens of seized electronic devices.

The Ministry of Education handed the entire fiasco to the CBI on May 12, bypassing state police to force a definitive government response. The NTA subsequently cancelled the May 3 examination, shattering the immediate hopes of millions who had spent years preparing for a single afternoon. Now, 22 lakh students must drag themselves back to the testing centres for a mandatory re-examination scheduled for June 21. They’re paying the ultimate price for an institutional failure, forced to endure the grueling preparation cycle all over again.

You can’t put a price on the psychological toll this takes on a 17-year-old student.

The CBI expects to make several more arrests in the coming days as agents trace the physical distribution of the leaked material deeper into the billion-dollar coaching industry. They are systematically dismantling a network that commodified public education. But the core breach didn’t happen in a dark alley or through a sophisticated cyber hack. It happened right at the source.