The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Thursday conducted searches at multiple locations in and around Delhi, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra in a case against Affinity Education Private Limited, its directors and others for alleged irregularities in the JEE (Mains) examination being conducted this year.
The accused used to charge ₹12 to ₹15 lakh per candidate to facilitate admissions in top National Institutes of Technology (NIT).
Among those named in the First Information Report are Siddharth Krishna, Vishwambhar Mani Tripathi and Shri Govind Varshney. The company’s employees, touts, and those posted at an examination centre in Haryana’s Sonepat are also suspected to be involved in the conspiracy. Several persons are being questioned.
During searches carried out in the National Capital Region, Pune, Jamshedpur, Indore and Bengaluru, the agency seized 25 laptops, seven personal computers, around 30 post-dated cheques, along with voluminous incriminating documents, including provisional degree certificates of various students, and other devices.
It is alleged that the company and its directors were manipulating the JEE (Mains) online examination by helping candidates solve their question papers through remote access from the Sonepat examination centre.
The accused used to keep with themselves Class 10 and 12 mark sheets, user IDs, passwords, and post-dated cheques of candidates coming from different parts of country as security, and once admissions were confirmed, they would collect hefty commissions from the beneficiaries.
