In Godhra, CBI records statements of NEET candidates ‘who paid accused’, submits FIR in court

In the morning, CBI officials summoned students who allegedly had been in touch with and even handed over cheques to the accused before the examination was held at Jay Jalaram School in Parvadi village on May 5.

According to sources, about 30 students have been summoned for questioning and at least 15 of them are based in Gujarat. On Thursday, some of the Gujarat-based students including at least two locals arrived at the Circuit House in Godhra, where CBI officials recorded their statements.

The Panchmahal district police, which lodged the first FIR in the case on May 8, had also issued summonses to the students but none of them or their parents appeared before the police.

According to officials, students from other states had been in touch with the arrested accused, Parshuram Roy of Vadodara-based Roy Overseas and Vibhor Anand, an education consultant. Students from Gujarat had been in touch with co-accused Arif Vora, who had allegedly also handed over Rs 7 lakh to prime accused Tushar Bhatt on the day of the exam.

The CBI is likely to also seek custody of the five accused, who are currently in judicial custody.

On Wednesday, a team of two CBI officers visited the Parvadi school as well as another school from the same group—in Padal in Kheda district, about 115 km from Godhra—which was also a NEET-UG centre.

Another team of CBI officials visited the office of Roy Overseas in Vadodara, from where the Panchmahal district police had recovered the cheques allegedly handed over by parents of the candidates. The CBI team was accompanied by the police.

Based on a complaint filed by Kiritkumar Patel, District Education Officer, Panchmahal, an FIR was lodged on May 8 at the Godhra taluka police station against Bhatt, Roy and Vora for alleged criminal conspiracy to help at least 26 students clear NEET “with meritorious rank using malpractice”. Anand and Sharma were later added as the accused.

The FIR stated that the attempted malpractice was “foiled” on May 5 during a raid conducted at the NEET centre by the education department following an input received by the district collector. According to the FIR, it was decided that the students would allegedly attempt only “the questions which they could solve” while leaving the “rest of the answer book blank to be filled up by the agents after the exam, when the answer book is submitted to the exam supervisor”.

The accused were booked under sections 406 (criminal breach of trust), 409 (criminal breach of trust by a public servant, or by banker, merchant or agent), 420 (cheating and dishonestly) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code.

On June 23, the CBI filed a fresh FIR against unidentified accused in the case.