NEET scam: Probe leads cops to National Board of Examination officials

The Delhi Police’s Crime Branch — investigating the National Eligibility and Entrance Test (NEET) scam — has questioned senior officials of the National Board of Examination (NBE), sources said, adding that they have denied their involvement in the case.

Sources said the investigation officer (IO) in the case recently summoned the former and present executive directors, deputy director and additional director of NBE. “After summoning them, they recorded their statements, where they have admitted to all the irregularities, and claimed that they were informed about the same by the M/S Prometric Testings Pvt Ltd,” sources added.

However, when the police asked them to provide details such as system log, server/proxy server log of the computers installed at the examination centres for the purpose of technical investigation, the NBE officials told the IO that M/S Prometric Testings Pvt Ltd has declined to provide the data to them.

“They had initiated ‘arbitration’ proceeding against the M/S Prometric Testings Pvt Ltd as the data concerned was required to be preserved as candidate data, as per their work agreement. The arbitration proceeding is still pending,” police sources said.

The agreement between NBE and Prometric only requires Prometric to retain “candidate data”, which is defined as any data concerning a candidate provided to Prometric by NBE or collected from candidates, sources added. During investigation, the central range of the Crime Branch found that the NBE had given M/S Prometric Testings Pvt Ltd the contract to conduct NEET PG (2017).

“They had sub-contracted with CMS IT Services Pvt Ltd to hire engineers, site supervisors and other staff to prepare exam laboratories, and for conducting the NEET (PG) examinations at various exam centres from December 5 to December 13. Later, CMS IT Services Pvt Ltd had further tied up with M/S Apex Services to provide manpower and technical staff at the examination centres,” police stated in their chargesheet.

In a related development, Delhi Police on Thursday produced 31-year-old postgraduate student Dr Jaan Mehta — who was arrested for allegedly seeking help from examination supervisors to cheat in the December 2016 NEET — before a Delhi court, which remanded him in police custody for five days. Mehta is currently pursuing radiology from Patna medical college.

As reported by The Indian Express in April, Delhi Police had discovered that computer servers were allegedly hacked to help students cheat in the NEET exam, following which three persons were arrested.