The Rouse Avenue court in the national capital has granted bail to three accused arrested for allegedly impersonating actual candidates to help them in the NEET entrance test for undergraduate medical courses.
Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACMM) Deepak Kumar, while granting bail to three accused in the case on Monday, also slammed the CBI’s Investigation Officer and said, “It appears that the investigation in the present case is being conducted at the whims and fancies of the IO (Investigating Officer) without any supervision by his superior officers.” The court said, “Till date, literally no investigation has been conducted on the actual candidates who had been impersonated by the co-accused persons in the present case FIR by appearing in the NEET-UG Exam, 2022, on July 17. Only investigation has been conducted on Arshad Malik and Smriti Rai, who were the actual candidates, and on Arvind Kumar Rai, i.e., the father of Smriti Rai, who was supposed to appear in the NEET-UG Exam, 2022.”
The court further pointed out that “no investigation has been conducted qua the hawala operators as disclosed in the statement of accused Pappu Singh, and no effort has been made by the IO to locate, trace, or seize the computer system from which he allegedly used to take the printouts of the morphed pictures sent to him by co-accused Sushil Ranjan.”
The ACMM, while granting bail to three accused, noted that, “Considering the aforesaid facts and circumstances, including a period of judicial custody of the accused and grant of regular bail to co-accused persons, lapses as pointed out above, and also considering that the investigation is complete qua them as nothing is required to be recovered from them or at their instance.”