NEET-UG 2025 manipulation case: Court refuses pre-arrest bail to consultant

The other co-accused were still absconding and that crucial evidence, including the missing mobile phone, remained unrecovered

MUMBAI: A special CBI court on Friday rejected the anticipatory bail plea of Rajiv Ranjan Sinha, an education consultant accused of playing a central role in the alleged NEET-UG score manipulation racket.

(Shutterstock)

Sinha had sought pre-arrest bail in a case registered by the CBI, where he was alleged to be part of a conspiracy to tamper with the NEET-UG 2025 scores in exchange for large sums of money. The agency stated that the original demand was ₹90 lakh per candidate, which was subsequently reduced to ₹87.5 lakh, and that candidates and their parents were lured into signing blank OMR sheets at a five-star hotel in Noida on May 9 and 12.

According to the CBI, co-accused Salim Patel sent Sinha a list of 15 candidates along with some admit cards and three OMR sheets over WhatsApp. The hotel in Noida where the meetings took place was booked in the name of another co-accused, Niraj Kumar, who the agency said had known Sinha for over a decade. The court noted that the presence of OMR sheets contradicted the defence claim that the candidates were only being assisted with management quota admissions.

The court further recorded that Sinha had allegedly received ₹3.99 lakh from a hawala trader at Vashi on May 12, as confirmed by a receipt bearing his name and mobile number. That same day, on instructions attributed to Sinha, ₹4 lakh was reportedly delivered to an unidentified individual at Delhi’s Dhaula Kuan. Call detail records were cited to show that Sinha was in communication with Salim Patel on the day of the alleged transactions.

The CBI also told the court that Sinha had replaced the mobile phone he used during the period of the alleged offence, claiming it was lost. The court observed that no complaint regarding the loss had been filed and that he had neither retained the same SIM number nor retrieved his call records. It concluded that it was likely that the old phone had been suppressed to prevent confirmation of the WhatsApp exchanges.

While Sinha claimed he was falsely implicated and had been in Thailand on vacation when the case was registered, the court rejected the argument and stated that the investigation was at a nascent stage and that the accused had projected Niraj Kumar and Prem Ranjan as officials of the National Testing Agency.

The court said that custodial interrogation would be more effective for eliciting key information rather than questioning Sinha under protection of pre-arrest relief. The judge also noted that the other co-accused were still absconding and that crucial evidence, including the missing mobile phone, remained unrecovered.