NEW DELHI: Three National Testing Agency (NTA) subject experts, P V Kulkarni for chemistry, Manisha Sanjay Havaldar for physics and Manisha Gurunath Mandhare for botany and zoology, were the primary sources of the NEET paper leak, according to the CBI's chargesheet.
The agency recently submitted its final report before the designated fast-track court dealing with "criminal cases arising from paper leaks as well as the use of other unfair means in public examinations".
"Investigation has revealed that (these three) experts were provided with plain sheets inside the confidential section for rough work during translation/ back translation."
"Accused P V Kulkarni (the alleged mastermind of the leak) has used these sheets to note down, on small chits, all 135 questions of chemistry in brief and the answer options and took them out in a concealed manner," the chargesheet said.
It said there was no checking or frisking of experts during entry or exit from the confidential section at NTA. Kulkarni memorised the easier questions and wrote them down after returning to his hotel, it added.
"Manisha Mandhare, NTA's English to Marathi translator for botany and back translator for zoology, after finishing her work for the day and returning to the hotel room, would mark the relevant paragraphs in the NCERT textbooks."
"Due to her decades of experience with the same material, she was easily able to correlate the questions with the NCERT textbook material," the chargesheet said.
It said that Manisha Sanjay Havaldar, entrusted with the translation for physics, "used to note down the questions in brief after returning to her stay in Delhi at the end of the day's work".
The final report said that the work of these experts went unnoticed as there was no dedicated CCTV live feed monitoring control room in the NTA office in the national capital.
According to a flow chart depicting the leak, the questions moved fluidly from these experts to a layer of "middlemen and facilitators".
It said the questions were passed to Tejas Harshadkumar Shah, Dr Manoj Bahgwanrao Shirure, Shivraj Motegaonkar, Dhananjay Nivrutti Lokhande and Shivraj Raghunath Motegaonkar, and some among them ran coaching institutes or consultancies.
The final link in the chain, the flow chart shows, involved the "onward distribution" to candidates by Shubham Madhukar Khairnar, Mangilal Biwal, Dinesh Biwal, Vikas Biwal in Rajasthan and Yash Yadav in Haryana.
Highlighting negotiations and dealings with candidates, the final report said Khairnar approached candidates for monetary consideration, collected educational documents and a blank cheque as security, and remained in active contact with the persons involved in the further distribution of the leaked paper.
It said, "The audio files recovered from Mangilal Biwal's mobile phone further reveal the planning and consciousness of the conspiracy."
"In an audio dated April 26, 2016, he (Mangilal) expressed concern that if Vikas Biwal and Rishi Biwal acted out of financial greed with candidates' parents, the leak could be exposed."
"Other audio recordings discussed the supply of the paper by Yash Yadav four days before the examination in PDF or hard-copy form, price negotiation from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 12 lakh, a special arrangement of 150 questions… and a diluted set of 450 questions for other buyers," the chargesheet said.
It said accused Manisha Sanjay Waghmare was "one of the prime conspirators in the leakage and dissemination of NEET UG 2026 questions for monetary consideration" and "acted as the link between candidates and the subject experts".
"Through this arrangement, she sourced leaked material from co-accused Kulkarni and co-accused Manisha Mandhare by sending candidates to them for special classes and by collecting money from students and their parents. She further sold the leaked questions to co-accused Dhananjay Lokhande before the examination," the chargesheet said.
The federal agency's final report cites corroboration from the Government Examiner of Questioned Documents (GEQD), a specialised central forensic science laboratory, which confirmed that the handwriting on several seized question sets matched that of the subject experts.
According to the chargesheet, GEQD analysis of 68 Physics questions recovered from the digital devices of Manisha Havaldar and Tejas Shah confirmed they were in the purported handwriting of the accused.
It said chemistry question sets seized from various candidates and middlemen were forensically linked to the notes of Kulkarni and the leaked biology material was based on photocopies of notes provided by expert Manisha Mandhare.