New Delhi:

Making a strong case for his client, senior lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi has said politics is writ large over Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal being arrested both by the Enforcement Directorate and the CBI in the alleged liquor policy scam and that the approach taken by the prosecution is not one that would be adopted by “prosecutors or even persecutors”.

In an exclusive interview with NDTV on Friday, Mr Singhvi also claimed that the CBI taking the AAP chief into custody soon after he was granted bail in the ED case is proof that politics was at play and went on to coin a new term for this: “insurance arrest”. 

The Congress leader’s comments came hours after the Supreme Court granted Mr Kejriwal bail in the case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act being investigated by the ED. The chief minister will, however,  remain in jail because he is yet to get relief in the case filed by the CBI.

When it was pointed out to him that the accused have been arrested by both CBI and the ED in the past, a combative Mr Singhvi said, “You are absolutely right, but just because something happens several times doesn’t make it right.”

“Consider four dates and four facts just for yourself. You don’t need to be a lawyer. The so-called liquor scam starts with documents registered officially in mid-2022. Mr Kejriwal is interrogated for nine hours by the CBI in mid-2023, one year later. He is arrested by the ED in March 2024 after the elections are announced and then arrested by the CBI, when he is already in custody, in June 2024,” he said. 

The senior advocate argued that the main offence in the case was filed by the CBI and the facts and context in the cases by both agencies were similar, raising the question of why there was a need to arrest Mr Kejriwal separately.

“Is he a flight risk, is he running away, is he interfering with witnesses? Why did you need to arrest him in June? This is nothing but mala fide writ large, politics writ large,” he said. 

Pointing out that Mr Kejriwal was questioned for nine hours by the CBI in 2023 and never after that, he claimed the chief minister being taken into custody in June reeked of an “insurance arrest” because the agencies knew that the case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act was weak.  

“The CBI case is going on. In fact, we have a stronger case in the CBI case because there’s no flight risk. But the government knows, the prosecutor knows that the process is the punishment. So they’re delaying it, they do an insurance arrest. Now I start a ladder from the bottom, then I go to the high court and Supreme Court and get relief. But you have achieved your purpose. You have prolonged (the stay in jail) by a few weeks… This is not the approach of prosecutors, it is not even the approach of persecutors,” he said.  

Referencing the Supreme Court order, Mr Singhvi said the bench had also stated that mere interrogation cannot be “a need or necessity” for arrest.

New Delhi:

The Supreme Court will today deliver its verdict on Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s plea challenging his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a money-laundering case.

A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta, which reserved its verdict on the plea on May 17, will pronounce the judgment.

Mr Kejriwal, also the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief, was arrested on March 21 by the ED in a money laundering case linked to the alleged Delhi liquor policy scam.

ALSO READ | Arvind Kejriwal Used Part Of “Liquor Scam” Kickbacks, Claims ED, AAP Refutes

He has challenged the April 9 order of the Delhi High Court that had upheld his arrest in the case.

The high court had upheld the 55-year-old politician’s arrest in the case, saying there was no illegality about it and that the central probe agency was left with “little option” after he skipped repeated summonses and refused to join the investigation.

The Supreme Court had on April 15 sought a response from the central probe agency on his plea challenging his arrest.

Arvind Kejriwal was earlier granted 21-day interim bail by the Supreme Court on May 10 to campaign for the Lok Sabha polls. He was directed to surrender on June 2, a day after the last phase of the seven-phased elections was scheduled to end.

He was then granted bail by a trial court in Delhi on June 20 in the case. However, the ED moved the Delhi High Court the next day and contended that the trial court’s order granting him bail was “perverse”, “one-sided” and “wrong-sided” and that the findings were based on irrelevant facts.

The high court on June 21 imposed an interim stay on the trial court’s bail order till the passing of an order on ED’s application for interim relief. The high court on June 25 also passed a detailed order staying the trial court order.

ALSO READ | Victim Of Witch-Hunt, Falsely Implicated: Arvind Kejriwal In Delhi High Court

Five days later, he was arrested by the Central Bureau Of Investigation (CBI) in connection with the corruption case related to the alleged liquor policy scam.

The Delhi Liquor Policy Case

The central probe agencies have claimed that irregularities were committed while modifying the Delhi government’s excise policy for 2021-22 and that undue favours were extended to licence holders.

The Delhi government brought in a new policy for liquor sellers in the national capital in November 2021. The Kejriwal-led government, as part of the new policy, stopped government outlets from selling liquor and allowed private parties to apply for licence to run stores.

It said the policy would help stop black marketing, increase the Delhi government’s revenue, and benefit customers.

The Delhi government, however, later scrapped the new liquor policy and reverted to the old one.

New Delhi:

The CBI has arrested a man called Rakesh Ranjan, alias Rocky, who is believed to be the kingpin in the NEET paper leak case, sources said Thursday afternoon.

Ranjan has been sent to the agency’s custody for 10 days. This comes as the CBI is also raiding four locations – two near Patna in Bihar and two near Kolkata in West Bengal – in this case.

Over a dozen people, including the principal and vice-principal of a school in Jharkhand’s Hazaribagh, have been arrested so far, as various state police forces and the CBI investigate a national racket that involves leaking of question papers for competitive exams like NEET.

NDTV Explains | If No Paper Leak, Why Arrests, And Other Big Questions

Last week a student was arrested from Patna.

The CBI has, excluding Rocky, arrested eight people in connection with this case.

Tasked with investigating the nation-wide exam paper racket, the agency has so far filed six FIRs, or first information reports, including five for three separate cases in Bihar.

On Wednesday CBI sources told NDTV the NEET paper leak may have had its origins in the Hazaribagh school. Papers leaked from there also made their way to Bihar, a CBI official said.

READ | NEET-UG Paper Leak Had Genesis In Hazaribagh: CBI Officials

Explaining the sequence of events, the CBI official said nine sets of papers for the exam, which was supposed to be held on May 5, reached a State Bank of India branch two days earlier for safekeeping. From there, two sets were transported to the Oasis School in Hazaribagh, which was a centre for the exam, and the seals on them were broken by the time they reached the school.

Agency sources said Rocky was present when the question papers were unsealed.

He took photos of the questions and shared them with ‘solver gangs’, the name given to an organised racket that provides answers to leaked papers. These were then shared with exam candidates, for prices running into the lakhs, who were trying to cheat. Rocky is also linked to another key figure in this racket, Sanjeev Mukhiya, who has been involved in this scam for two decades and is on the run.

READ | Who is Sanjeev Mukhiya? Alleged Mastermind Of NEET Paper Leak

The arrest of Ranjan, or Rocky, could bust the NEET case wide open even as the courts debate the extent of the leak of question papers. The government and the testing agencies both say the leak has been limited to localised regions and a few students.

CBI sources said that while it is not clear exactly where the papers were leaked from, what the evidence points to is the fact that it was: either from the bank branch, while in transit to the school, or from the school itself.

The NEET-UG exam is taken for admission to undergraduate medical courses.

Controversy – nearly 24 lakh students took the May 5 exam – broke last month after results were declared. The first red flags were the unusually high number of perfect scores; a record 67 students, including six from one coaching centre, scored a maximum 720. Questions were also asked over the award of ‘grace marks’ – not exam protocol, the NTA said – to 1,563 students.

Questions were also asked over the award of ‘grace marks’ to 1,563 students.

A retest for those students was held last week, but hundreds did not appear.

The entire row has made its way to the Supreme Court, which had served a notice to the under-fire NTA, or National Testing Agency, which is the central body that conducts the NEET exam.

The NTA today defended itself against claims the NEET paper had been leaked on popular messaging app Telegram, calling those images a “fake”. In an affidavit filed on Wednesday the NTA said the screenshots shared on Telegram were “fabricated”.

READ | “Manipulated”: Exam Body On “Fake” NEET Paper On Telegram

The NTA also claimed no NEET-UG question paper was found to be missing, and that no locks (of boxes containing the papers) were broken in Bihar.

READ | Why So Many NEET-UG Toppers? Exam Body’s Reply In Court

Further, the NTA also sought to explain why there were an unusually high number of high-scoring results in this year’s exam, saying “differences in new and old editions” of a textbook meant there were two correct options to one question. Removing that, the agency said, the actual number of toppers was only 17, “which is not significantly higher in numbers than previous years”.

The court is hearing a clutch of petitions seeking cancellation of the NEET-UG 2024 exam.

However, on Monday, the court said it was not for such a step.

READ | “Retest Our Last Option, Panel Must Probe Paper Leak”: Supreme Court On NEET

The three-judge bench led by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud said it therefore was loathe to order a re-test for nearly 24 lakh students – many of whom come from poor families and could ill-afford to spend money travelling to exam centres – unless necessary. A re-test is the “last option”, it said.

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New Delhi:

The CBI registered an FIR on Friday in connection with four lakh fake students detected in Haryana government schools in 2016, officials said.

The case was handed over to the CBI on the orders of the Punjab and Haryana High Court on November 2, 2019, the officials said.

The CBI had approached the Supreme Court claiming that the investigation may require huge manpower and the probe should be given to the state police.

The top court dismissed the petition recently after which the CBI registered the FIR.

The High Court was informed in 2016 that a verification of data revealed that there were 22 lakh students in government schools in different classes, but only 18 lakh students were actually found and four lakh were fake admissions.

The court was also told that certain benefits were being given to the students who belong to backward or poor sections of the society to encourage them to attend schools and the mid day meal scheme.

The High Court had ordered the state vigilance to appoint a senior officer to enquire into the suspected siphoning off of funds for four lakh “non-existent” students by The bench ordered fixing of responsibility and also take action commensurate with the guilt proved as a measure of deterrence.

On vigilance bureau’s recommendations, seven FIRs were registered in the state.

In its 2019 order, the High Court noted that after the registration of FIRS, the investigation is “very slow”. It then transferred the probe to the Central Bureau of Investigation for a proper, thorough and expeditious investigation.

It had asked the State Vigilance to hand over all documents within a week of its order on November 2, 2019 and had asked the CBI to file a status report within three months.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday recovered a sack full of paper documents from the office of the West Bengal Education Department in northern Kolkata, officials said.

Although the CBI officials were tight-lipped about the nature of the documents seized from a storeroom at Bikash Bhavan in the Salt Lake area, sources said these documents will lead the agency to crucial leads relating to the multi-crore cash-for-school job case.

Sources said that although the CBI sleuths conducted raid and search operations on Wednesday and Thursday as well, the seizure of the documents happened on Friday afternoon.

The last time when the CBI sleuths came to Bikash Bhavan was in January, when they interrogated some of the top officials of the department in the case. At that time also, the investigating officials seized some documents relating to the case. Recently, the CBI officials have started probing some teachers in some-state run schools who are suspected to have played the role of middlemen in the case and whose names surfaced in the course of interrogation of some candidates who were suspects in getting appointments after paying hefty amounts through the chain of middlemen.

Sources said that 11 such teachers and two non-teaching staff, suspected to have played the role of middlemen, are currently under the scanner of the central agency officials. These are among the 35 new middlemen whose names have surfaced during the course of investigation by the sleuths in the last couple of months.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Godhara, Gujarat:

 A CBI team investigating the NEET-UG malpractices case on Thursday recorded statements of three candidates who had allegedly paid an accused for helping them clear the medical entrance test held at a private school near Godhra in Gujarat.

Besides the three candidates and their parents, the investigators were also questioning Dixit Patel, owner of the local Jay Jalaram School, at the Godhra circuit house, an official said.

A Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) team has been camping in Gujarat for the last four days to probe alleged malpractice during the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test held on May 5.

The school run by Dixit Patel was one of the exam centres.

The team had on Wednesday visited two private schools in Gujarat’s Kheda and Panchmahal districts as part of its probe. CBI officials first visited Jay Jalaram International School on Sevaliya-Balasinor highway in Kheda district, and later the Jay Jalaram School at Godhra in Panchmahal district.

Both the schools, located 100 km apart, are owned by Patel.

A case was registered by Godhra Police on May 8 against three persons under various Indian Penal Code provisions including criminal conspiracy, cheating and criminal breach of trust for allegedly trying to help 27 candidates clear the NEET-UG by charging Rs 10 lakh each.

On June 23, the CBI filed a fresh FIR (first information report) against unidentified persons under IPC sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy) and 420 (cheating), among others, amid countrywide protests and litigation by students for a probe into paper leak claims.

The CBI has taken over the investigation of five new cases of alleged malpractices in NEET-UG being probed by police in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Bihar.

The Gujarat police had arrested five persons, including the principal and a teacher of a school in Godhra, in these cases.

The racket was unearthed after the Panchmahal district collector received a tip-off that some persons were involved in malpractices linked to the exam, as per the FIR registered on May 8 by the Godhra police.

Since the tip-off was received in advance, authorities prevented malpractices at the centre (Jay Jalaram School in Godhra) and the exam was conducted without a hitch, the FIR said.

Physics teacher Tushar Bhatt, school principal Parshottam Sharma, Vadodara-based education consultant Parsuram Roy, his aide Vibhor Anand and alleged middleman Arif Vohra were arrested by police.

As per the FIR registered at the Godhra taluka police station on a complaint of the district education officer, Rs 7 lakh in cash were recovered from Bhatt who taught at Jay Jalaram School and was appointed the deputy centre superintendent for NEET in the city.

Out of 27 students who had either paid in advance or agreed to pay money to Roy and others, only three were able to clear the exam, according to sources.

The accused had asked the candidates to solve a question if they knew the answer, and leave the remaining paper blank. The answers of remaining questions were be filled in by Bhatt when the papers were collected after the exam, as per the FIR.

More than 24 lakh students appeared for the NEET UG 2024 across centres in 571 cities. Results were released on June 4.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Thiruvananthapuram:

The CBI has filed a charge sheet against five individuals in a court here in connection with the alleged framing of space scientist Nambi Narayanan in the 1994 ISRO espionage case, sources said on Wednesday.

It is not immediately known who has been charge-sheeted in the case registered in 2021 following the Supreme Court’s directions.

On April 15, 2021, the Supreme Court had ordered that the report of a high-level committee on the role of erring police officials in the 1994 espionage case involving ISRO scientist Narayanan be given to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The Kerala police had registered two cases in October 1994 after Maldivian national Rasheeda was arrested in Thiruvananthapuram for allegedly obtaining secret drawings of ISRO rocket engines to sell to Pakistan.

Narayanan, the then director of the cryogenic project at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), was arrested along with the then ISRO deputy director D Sasikumaran and Fousiya Hasan, a Maldivian friend of Rasheeda.

The CBI probe had found the allegations to be false.

Terming the police action against the former ISRO scientist “psychopathological treatment,” the Supreme Court had, in September 2018, stated that his “liberty and dignity,” basic to his human rights, were jeopardised as he was taken into custody and, despite all the glory of the past, was eventually compelled to face “cynical abhorrence.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Patna:

A special CBI court in Patna on Wednesday sent two persons accused of leaking NEET-UG question paper to three-day CBI custody.

The two alleged ‘exam mafias’ — Mukesh Kumar and Chintu — are facing charges of leaking the question paper for NEET-UG conducted on May 5.

During the investigation conducted by the Economic Offences Unit (EOU) of the Bihar Police, it was found that Chintu received the question paper on his mobile phone.

The CBI is now expected to grill Chintu and Mukesh to find out how they procured the question paper in advance and how many aspirants were made to memorise the answers before the entrance test was held on May 5.

EOU probe has revealed that Chintu is married to the sister of Sanjeev Mukhiya, one of the main accused in the case.

The police have recovered 20 ATM cards, 21 blank cheques, and Rs 50,000 in cash from Chintu’s possession.

Nearly 24 lakh students appeared for the NEET-UG 2024 for undergraduate medical programmes on May 5. The results were released ahead of schedule on June 4. However, controversy arose with claims of question paper leak and the awarding of grace marks to more than 1,500 students, leading to widespread protests and legal actions, including cases filed in various courts, notably the Supreme Court, which strongly criticised the National Testing Agency’s handling of the matter.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was questioned by the Central Bureau of Investigation twice this week in the alleged liquor policy case. Mr Kejriwal was questioned on Monday by the central probe agency and then again on Tuesday in the Tihar jail for more than an hour.

The Aam Aadmi Party chief is currently in jail in connection with an Enforcement Directorate’s money laundering case arising from the alleged liquor policy case. The Delhi liquor policy 2021-22 was scrapped after the Delhi lieutenant governor ordered a CBI probe into alleged irregularities and corruption involving its formulation and execution.

The questioning of Mr Kejriwal comes just a day ahead of a Supreme Court hearing of the AAP petition against the Delhi High Court order staying the bail granted to the Chief Minister by a trial court.

The trial court had granted bail to Mr Kejriwal on June 20 and ordered his release on a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh. The high court stayed the trial court order on Tuesday, saying the Delhi’s Rouse Avenue Court – “didn’t apply its mind” when granting bail and pointed to what it said were lapses in judgement.

The AAP, meanwhile, alleged a conspiracy involving CBI officers to frame Mr Kejriwal in a “fake case” and get him arrested. The CBI has rejected the accusations.

The Enforcement Directorate or ED had arrested Mr Kejriwal on March 21, shortly after the Delhi High Court refused to grant him protection from arrest on his petition challenging summonses issued to him.

On May 10, the Supreme Court granted interim bail to Mr Kejriwal till June 1 to campaign in Lok Sabha elections, saying he will have to surrender and go back to jail on June 2. He has been in jail ever since.

The ED and the CBI have alleged the Delhi government’s liquor policy for 2021-22 allowed cartelisation and favoured certain dealers who paid bribes for licenses. The AAP has strongly denied the charge.

The CBI on Monday took over five new cases of alleged malpractices in the medical entrance exam NEET-UG that were being investigated by police in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Bihar, as the political storm intensified with the opposition gearing up to confront the government in Parliament on the paper leak issue.

The Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of Maharashtra has arrested a Zilla Parishad school headmaster from Latur and detained a teacher after it emerged that at least four persons allegedly operated a racket to help NEET students willing to pay money to crack the exam.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to consider abolishing NEET, the national-level medical entrance exam introduced in 2013, and reverting to the system of states conducting the exam in the wake of the paper leak row.

Several opposition MPs said on the first day of the 18th Lok Sabha that the government will have to answer on the issue in Parliament as it is causing hardship to lakhs of students.

As Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan proceeded to take oath in Lok Sabha, members of the opposition shouted “NEET, NEET”.

Amid protests and litigation, the Centre on Saturday removed National Testing Agency (NTA) Director General Subodh Singh and handed over the probe into irregularities in NEET-UG to the CBI, which is now probing a total of six cases in the matter.

Pradeep Singh Kharola took the additional charge of NTA on Monday and had meetings with officials of the testing body.

The seven-member panel set up by the Education Ministry headed by former ISRO chief K Radhakrishnan to review the NTA’s functioning and recommend exam reforms met on Monday evening.

“The panel met today and was apprised of the current processes and functioning of the agency. The panel also looked into the statistics provided by NTA about the multiple exams conducted by it and the number of candidates appearing for each exam,” a source said.

Dharmendra Pradhan had asserted that it was the first of a series of steps to improve the efficiency of the examination process, put an end to all possible malpractices, strengthen data security protocols and overhaul and reform the NTA.

The Centre on Monday also made public the rules under the recently notified anti-paper leak law, mandating the National Recruitment Agency (NRA) to prepare norms, standards and guidelines for the computer-based tests among others.

The Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Rules, 2024 have provisions for “engagement of services of other government agencies by public examination authority”, “preparations of norms, standards and guidelines” and “reporting of incidents of unfair means or offences” among others.

Officials at the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said the agency has re-registered one case each from Gujarat and Bihar and three cases from Rajasthan as its own FIR. It is also likely to take up another case from Maharashtra’s Latur.

Barring the case from Bihar, the other four appear to be isolated incidents of impersonation and cheating by local officials, invigilators and candidates, the officials said.

The CBI has already registered its own FIR in connection with the case on a reference from the Union education ministry to conduct a comprehensive probe, they said.

After taking over these new cases, the CBI is now probing six cases of alleged irregularities in NEET-UG.

The Economic Offences Unit of the Bihar Police arrested five more persons on Sunday, taking the total arrests to 18.

In Maharashtra, police said they have arrested Jalil Khan Umar Khan Pathan, the headmaster of a Cilla Parishad school late Sunday night, and detained another school teacher Sanjay Jadhav on Monday for questioning. According to police, both teachers also run a private coaching centre.

The Centre has drawn flak over alleged irregularities in NEET-UG and UGC-NET.

In a letter to the PM, TMC chief Mamata Banerjee called for strong action against those involved in the alleged irregularities in the NEET-UG exam.

“I strongly urge upon you to consider and take immediate steps to restore the previous system of conducting this examination by the state governments and abolish the NEET examination.

“This will help restore normalcy and confidence of the aspirant students in the system,” she said.

Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Anil Desai said addressing the NEET-UG row requires more than arresting a few individuals and claimed the involvement of a broader network in the case.

“The entire reputation has been tarnished because of NEET. Simply arresting one or two officers will not resolve the issue. There is an extensive racket at work,” alleged the Mumbai South Central MP.

Days after Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Vijay Kumar Sinha claimed that an arrested prime suspect is linked to officials associated with RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, RJD MP Manoj Jha claimed proximity between those named for paper leaks and leaders of the JD(U) and BJP.

While the medical entrance exam question paper was allegedly leaked, according to an investigation by the Bihar Police, UGC-NET was cancelled a day after it was conducted following input that the exam’s integrity had been compromised. Both matters are now being investigated by the CBI.

Two other exams — NEET-PG and CSIR-UGC NET — have been cancelled by the government amid the row.

Meanwhile, the Congress-affiliated National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) held a protest at Jantar Mantar.

Ahead of their planned march to Parliament, police barricaded the area and more than two dozen students, some of them NSUI members, were detained.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)