New Delhi: As many as 111 of the 136 questions, handwritten and recovered from the cell phone of a coaching centre owner arrested from Latur in Maharashtra, matched the master question sets prepared by National Testing Agency (NTA) for the NEET-UG 2026 examination, the probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has revealed.
These questions were captured in a total of 31 images recovered from the cell phone of Shivraj Motegaonkar, who runs Renukai Chemistry Classes in Latur and a YouTube channel, Motegaonkar Sir’s RCC, with 1.68 lakh subscribers.
Additionally, the agency alleged Motegaonkar obtained the questions on 23 April on the premises of Siddhivinayak Hospital in Latur, run by city-based paediatrician Manoj Shirure. The questions were allegedly leaked by NTA panel member and translator P.V. Kulkarni, who the agency said reached Motegaonkar through Shirure, in exchange of Rs 5 lakh.
The agency made these specific allegations against the accused in response to bail applications filed by Motegaonkar and Shirure before a Special CBI Court in Delhi.
Motegaonkar was arrested by the agency on 17 May, while Shirure was taken into custody in the national capital on the night of 26 May. Both have been lodged at Tihar jail since.
“During the search, in a mobile phone used by Shivraj Motegaonkar, 36 images (5 duplicate images) containing 132 handwritten questions of Chemistry purportedly in the handwriting of Shivraj Motegaonkar were found with metadata showing camera as Samsung Fold 7 (same phone in which images were found) and date of capture as 23.04.2026 i.e., prior to the examination of NEЕТ UG 2026 held on 03.05.2026,” the agency submitted while rebutting submissions by Motegaonkar’s counsel that he was falsely implicated in the case.
“Prima facie, it was found that approximately 111 of these questions match with questions in the NTA master question sets prepared for NEET UG 2026,” the agency alleged.
Earlier, at the time of seeking his transit remand from Pune, the agency had alleged that Motegaonkar destroyed the leaked questions after the examination, thereby causing destruction of evidence. The agency further alleged that Motegaonkar had procured the question paper from Kulkarni, who also held special classes for his son Aditya and that the handwritten sample paper was prepared by the latter, drawing from the leaked questions.
Against Shirure, the CBI has alleged that he referred two more doctors to procure leaked questions from Kulkarni. However, their names have not been made public or mentioned in any of the court filings. Shirure’s lawyer Kumar Vaibhaw also made mention of this during arguments on his bail plea Wednesday.
The Centre had in May transferred the probe to the CBI in the wake of preliminary findings of the Rajasthan Special Operations Group (SOG) that initially probed the case, and found that around 135 of the more than 400 questions in the “guess paper” in circulation online also appeared in the question paper in the main examination for which nearly 22 lakh aspirants appeared on 3 May.
The agency had registered a case under Sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) dealing with offences amounting to criminal conspiracy, cheating, criminal breach of trust, theft and destruction of evidence, as well as relevant sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act and the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act.
Amidst uproar over the leak, the NTA cancelled the examination held on 3 May and conducted it again on 21 June.
In its probe so far, the CBI has traced the leak primarily to Kulkarni, who, besides being a Chemistry subject expert on the NTA panel, was also a translator with full access to all sets of question papers prepared by the NTA. The agency had also arrested one Pune-based woman, Manisha Waghmare, for allegedly procuring the question paper and passing it on to Dhananjay Lokhande. From him, the question paper reached Shubham Khairnar in Nashik, before reaching Yash Yadav in Gurugram and then to a family in Rajasthan’s Sikar district.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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