Delhi court grants bail to 3 accused for impersonating NEET-UG candidates, slams CBI

Three accused were granted bail by the Rouse Avenue court in the national capital for allegedly impersonating genuine candidates in order to assist them pass the NEET entrance exam for undergraduate medical degrees.

Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACMM) Deepak Kumar while granting bail to three accused in the case on Monday, also slammed CBI’s Investigation officer and said, “It appears that the investigation in the present case is being conducted at the whims and fancies of the IO (Investigating Officer) without any supervision by his superior officers.”

The court said,” till date, literally no investigation has been conducted from the actual candidates who had been impersonated by the co-accused persons in the present case FIR by appearing in NEET-UG Exam, 2022 on July 17.

Only investigation has been conducted on one Arshad Malik and Smriti Rai who were the actual candidates and Arvind Kumar Rai i.e. father of Smriti Rai who was supposed to appear in the NEET-UG Exam, 2022.”

The court further pointed out that “no investigation has been conducted qua the hawala operators as disclosed in the statement of accused Pappu Singh neither any effort has been made by the IO to locate/trace /seize the computer system from which he allegedly used to take the printouts of the morphed pictures sent to him by co-accused Sushil Ranjan.”

The ACMM while granting bail to three accused noted that, “Considering the aforesaid facts and circumstances including a period of judicial custody of the accused and grant of regular bail to co-accused persons, lapses as pointed above and also considering that the investigation is complete qua them as nothing is required to be recovered from them or at their instance. Therefore, no purpose would be served by keeping the accused/applicants in judicial custody any further.

Accordingly, instant applications seeking a grant of bail is allowed and applicants namely Sushil Ranjan, Pappu Singh and Uma Shankar Gupta are admitted to bail on their furnishing of personal bond in the sum of Rs 50,000 each with one surety.

Accused Uma Shankar was represented by advocate Hemant Shah in the case.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in July busted a rigging racket during National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) 2022 for undergraduate medical courses conducted by National Testing Agency (NTA) and arrested several members including the alleged kingpin from Delhi and Haryana. NEET UG-2022 was conducted on July 17 in offline mode.

According to CBI, one Sushil Ranjan, a resident of Delhi, Brij Mohan Singh, Pappu, Uma Shankar and several unidentified others, were involved in arranging solvers who will impersonate as real candidates in the said exam at several exam centres in Delhi and Haryana. The impersonators were to appear in the NEET UG Exam, 2022 in place of actual candidates and give the exam in lieu of large sums of money.

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