CBI searches 20 premises for alleged irregularities in JEE mains exam

The move follows a criminal case registered in the matter on Wednesday by the federal agency

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has conducted massive search operations at 20 premises on Thursday for alleged irregularities in an ongoing JEE (mains) exams involving a private institution—Affinity Education.

This is following a criminal case registered in the case on Wednesday by the federal agency.

A CBI team searched about 20 premises in various cities including at Delhi-NCR, Pune, Bengaluru, Jamshedpur of the institute directors including Siddharth Krishna, Vishwambhar Mani Tripathi and Govind Varshney. The team had also reached premises of their associates and staff who were posted at the examination centre, the federal agency said. 

During the searches, the agency has recovered 25 laptops, 7 computers, around 30 post-dated cheques along with voluminous incriminating documents, devices and data of mark sheet of different students. 

The prestigious engineering entrance exam, JEE main 2021, concluded on Thursday.

It was further alleged that the Affinity and its directors were manipulating the online examination of JEE (Mains) and facilitating aspiring students to get admission in top NITs in consideration of huge amount by solving the question paper of the applicant through remote access from a chosen examination centre in Sonepat(Haryana). 

It was also alleged that the accused used to obtain 10th and 12th mark sheets, the user Ids, passwords, and post dated cheques of aspiring students in different parts of country as security and once admission was done, they used to collect heavy amount ranging from Rs 12-15 Lakh(approx) each candidate. 

The exam, which is otherwise held twice, was held in four sessions this year.

About 600,000-700,000 students had registered for the exam in each session.