VADODARA: The chairman of a reputable private school in Gujarat's Godhra was arrested Sunday in the NEET-UG malpractice case being investigated by CBI, making him the sixth suspect to be taken into custody in the state and the fourth person linked to an educational institute after the school's principal, a teacher and an academic consultant.
Dixit Patel, who heads the Jay Jalaram Education Trust, stands accused of seeking Rs 10 lakh each from willing medical aspirants in return for helping them clear NEET-UG through unfair means. Jay Jalaram School was one of the designated NEET-UG centres in Panchmahal for the May 5 test, just as Oasis School in Hazaribag, whose principal and vice-principal are in CBI custody.
After Anand arrest, CBI drove edu trust head 86km to GodhraA CBI team arrested Dixit Patel, chairman of a reputable private school in Godhra, in Anand and drove 86km to Godhra, where he was produced in a court with a remand plea. The magistrate asked the agency to seek his remand from the special CBI court in Ahmedabad.
Dixit's arrest came days after CBI sought and received custody of the four people arrested by police in the initial days of the investigation. A CBI team has been camping in Gujarat to connect the dots in the NEET-UG paper leak case investigation that started in Bihar and Jharkhand before evidence emerged in other states, including Maharashtra and UP, of a larger conspiracy involving paper leak rackets entrenched across the country.
The Godhra case was registered on May 8, three days after the exam, against five people based on information that they had helped 27 medical aspirants cheat. All five were charged with criminal conspiracy, cheating and criminal breach of trust under sections of the IPC.
The arrested suspects include Vadodara-based education consultant Parshuram Roy, Jay Jalaram School principal Purushottam Sharma, teacher Tushar Bhatt, and alleged middlemen Vibhor Anand and Arif Vohra.
On June 23, CBI filed a fresh FIR in the case under IPC sections 120B and 420, among others as protests erupted countrywide. CBI has taken over five cases of alleged malpractice in NEET-UG that were being probed by police in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Bihar.