UGC-NET paper leak: CBI chargesheet may limit offences as ‘no major conspiracy’ in paper leak

NEW DELHI: The CBI, probing the UGC-NET paper leak, has not found any large-scale conspiracy in the case and would limit its likely charge sheet to offences of attempt to cheat or cheating, officials said on Thursday.

During the course of investigation, the officials said, the CBI sleuths found that a youth allegedly circulated a “doctored” screenshot of the leaked paper on Telegram, which led to the cancellation of the exam following an alert issued by the I4C of the Ministry of Home Affairs about a possible “breach”.

The officials said that the probe revealed that the screenshot of the “leaked” question paper for the June 18 exam was “doctored” by a school student.

According to data available with the exam body a little over 11 lakh candidates had registered for the test, which determines eligibility for junior research fellowship, appointment as assistant professors and admission to PhD in Indian universities and colleges.

A day after the exam, it was cancelled by the Ministry of Education following the alert it received from the MHA’s National Cyber Crime Threat Analytics Unit of the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C). The Ministry of Education in a statement had said, “The UGC received certain inputs from the I4C under the MHA on the examination. These inputs prima facie indicate that the integrity of the aforesaid examination may have been compromised.”

The probe was subsequently handed over to the CBI, which found that the purported screenshot of the paper was created by the school student using an app. He changed the date of the screenshot to June 17 to make some money by giving the impression that he had access to the paper, officials said.