A Delhi court has allowed a key accused in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (Undergraduate) question paper leak case to receive religious books inside Tihar Jail. Dhananjay Lokhande, who is in judicial custody in connection with the alleged leak, had sought printed texts of the Hanuman Chalisa and Mangal Stotra, along with a copy ofShrimaan Yogi, a biographical novel on Chhatrapati Shivaji by Marathi author Ranjeet Desai.
Special Judge Ajay Gupta on Tuesday directed jail authorities to facilitate the handover of the books, subject to security clearance. The books are to be supplied by Lokhande's family members or his authorised counsel.
"Considering the facts and circumstances and the submissions made on behalf of A-8, concerned jail authorities are directed to provide the religious book to the accused as mentioned in Prayer Clause (a) of the application (which shall be supplied by any of his family member/ his authorised counsel) subject to security check and as per Jail Manual Rules in this regard," the judge observed in the order.
Lokhande has been lodged in Tihar Jail since his arrest by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is probing the leak of NEET-UG 2026 question papers.
Investigation and charges
The CBI's chargesheet identifies Lokhande as a key point of transmission of the leaked question papers, allegedly moving them from Maharashtra to Haryana and then to Rajasthan. According to the agency, Lokhande sent associates to collect the papers from Manisha Waghmare, a Pune-based businesswoman, who had obtained them from subject-matter experts on the National Testing Agency (NTA) panel.
After securing physical copies of the leaked questions, Lokhande allegedly passed them to aides of Nashik-based accused Shubham Khairnar, who then passed them to Yash Yadav in Gurugram, from where they reached the Biwal family in Rajasthan's Sikar.
The CBI had earlier submitted that Lokhande, known to Khairnar, collected the NEET 2026 material from Waghmare and transmitted it to Khairnar.
The investigation has found that three subject experts took exam questions out of the NTA office in Delhi using different methods. One expert allegedly scrawled questions on paper chits before hiding them, while two others memorised the questions and later wrote them down or marked relevant paragraphs in NCERT textbooks at their hotel rooms. According to the CBI, the experts were not frisked while exiting the confidential section, a wing on the first floor of the NTA office, which also lacked a dedicated CCTV live feed monitoring control room.
The agency has made 13 arrests in the case so far, including subject experts V. Kulkarni, Manisha Havaldar, and Manisha Mandhare.
Court proceedings
On Tuesday, the court also rejected pleas from two accused — Manisha Mandhare and Manisha Havaldar — seeking more time to inspect documents not relied upon by the prosecution. CBI counsels K. Pathak and Arjun Anand informed the court that the accused had inspected the unrelied-upon documents for two hours each on 24 and 25 August, while Havaldar's counsel had inspected materials for six to seven hours on 25, 27, and 31 August.
Rejecting the request, Special Judge Gupta said: "This court does not find any substance in such submissions. As per the mandate of the amended Act, the trial of the present case has to be carried out expeditiously and on day-to-day basis and as such, each day is important and thus, Ld. Counsels for accused persons were duty bound to utilize maximum time for inspection of the unrelied documents on the days provided to them for inspection."
Background
More than 22.7 lakh aspirants appeared for the NEET exam on May 3, which was cancelled by the NTA following the alleged leak. The retest took place on June 21, and the results were declared on July 16.