3 booked in Gujarat’s Panchmahal district for attempted malpractice during May 5 NEET exam

The FIR lodged by Patel, shortly before midnight on Wednesday, states that the attempted malpractice was “foiled” on May 5 during a raid at the NEET Centre by an inspection squad, which included Deputy Collector Mahipalsinh Chudasma. The raid was conducted after an input was received by the Panchmahal District Collector.

The plan

According to the FIR, it had been decided that the students would appear for the exam and allegedly “only attempt 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 Education department approached the police only on Wednesday since the officials were busy on “election duties”.

The FIR has been filed against three people — including Tushar Rajnikant Bhatt, a geography teacher of the Jai Jalaram school, Parshuram Roy of the Vadodara-based Roy Overseas, an overseas education agency, and middleman Arif Vora of Godhra.

The FIR has been filed for alleged criminal conspiracy to help at least 26 students clear the May 5 NEET exams “with meritorious rank using malpractice”, said officials.

What the FIR says

The FIR, which quotes a series of chats between Bhatt and Roy from May 4 to May 9, states, “In one of the two mobile phones seized from Bhatt, messages exchanged between Bhatt and a man named Parshuram Roy were found. (Bhatt) has received messages from (Roy), which includes three screenshots of a computer screen with names of 16 (students) with their roll numbers as well as the name of the examination centre.”

The FIR states that on the day of the exam, the messages exchanged between the two show that of the 16 students who had allegedly approached the agents, two students dropped out and messages with their names saying “is cancelled” were sent to Bhatt.

The FIR states, “The message sent in English at 9.05 am on May 5 (to Bhatt) said so Rest 14 is final… But at 9.23 am, another message was sent stating that (the name of one student) is not cancelled. It is confirmed just now I got confirmation. The next message at 9.24 am stated that only one (student name) is cancelled so a total 15.”

The FIR states that when asked about the context of the messages, Bhatt initially “did not give any satisfactory explanation”. The FIR further states, “When (Bhatt) was asked about the messages, he said they had been sent by Parshuram Roy of Roy Overseas in Vadodara and that the names of the students were of those, whose NEET centres were in our (Jai Jalaram) school.”

It adds, “He confessed that the accused had decided to charge Rs 10 lakhs per student to solve the question papers. In his mobile phone, there were two lists of names of students from two schools of Jalaram group which were centres for the NEET exam. Names of about 20 students on one list and about six students on another list were underlined with a red pen.”

The FIR also states that Bhatt was handed out names of six students by Godhra-based Vora, who had also agreed to pay Rs 10 lakh each and had also paid an advance of Rs 7 lakh each to Bhatt, which has been recovered from Bhatt’s personal car, during the raid by the inspection team.

Show-cause issued but arrest yet to be made

The FIR mentions that Bhatt had been served a show-cause notice and summoned to appear before the probe committee before the education department approached the police.

Panchmahal Superintendent of Police Himanshu Solanki told The Indian Express, “We have initiated a probe after receiving a complaint from the District Education Officer late on Wednesday night. We are yet to arrest the accused. So far, the FIR has been lodged against the three people and we are expecting more names to spill out during the probe.”

The accused have been booked under Indian Penal Code for 406 (criminal breach of trust), 409 (Criminal breach of trust by public servant, or by banker, merchant or agent), 420 (Cheating and dishonestly) and 120(B) (Criminal Conspiracy).