NEET UG 2025: Mumbai court extends CBI custody of two held in exam score manipulation case; cites ‘larger conspiracy’

NEET UG 2025: A Mumbai court extended the CBI custody of two persons held in connection with the NEET-UG exam score manipulation case till June 16 after the probe agency said it needed to unearth the "larger conspiracy".

As per CBI, one of the accused — Sandeep Shah, in conspiracy with the other — Salim Patel was contacting parents of NEET UG 2025 candidates with the promise of manipulating their marks for money, reported PTI.

The two, who are accused of demanding and accepting undue advantage to influence officials of the National Testing Agency (NTA) were held on June 10 and were produced in court during the day after their previous remand ended.

How the accused promised to manipulate NEET-UG scores

Sandeep Shah allegedly demanded ₹90 lakh per candidate and later brought it down to ₹87.5 lakh after assuring admission to government colleges with the help of NTA officers, the CBI said.

Meanwhile, the other accused, Salim Patil, accepted ₹32.50 lakh from one candidate and ₹75 lakh through hawala from three other candidates. He even took one of the candidates to Noida, the probing agency, reported PTI.

Hall tickets of candidates, WhatsApp chats add to the case

The CBI told the court that hall tickets of NEET-UG 2025 candidates were found on the accused's mobile phones and that a large volume of mobile data still needs to be extracted and examined. Citing this, the agency sought five-day custody of the accused.

However, lawyers Sujit More and Rakesh Singh, appearing for the accused, opposed the request, arguing that the probing agency already has the mobile phones and there’s nothing more to recover. Instead, they pleaded for judicial custody for their clients.

The court, however, observed that the investigation had made substantial progress and emphasised the need to confront the accused with 1,600 pages of WhatsApp chats. It noted that these messages include names of NEET-UG 2025 candidates whose marks were allegedly to be tampered with, reported PTI.

The special judge stressed that the matter and the consequences of the crime are serious and for proper investigation police custody is required to be granted. As there is progress in the investigation, further police custody is justified, the court said.

NEET UG Result 2025

The results of NEET UG exam for the year 2025, were declared on Saturday, June 14. Mahesh Kumar from Rajasthan secured the first rank in the entrance exam.