A criminal case has been registered against a schoolteacher in Godhra in Gujarat's Panchmahal district and two others for their alleged involvement in trying to help six candidates appearing for the NEET-UG competitive exam by promising to solve their papers for a sum of Rs 10 lakh each, police said on Thursday.

A physics teacher, identified as Tushar Bhatt, who was the deputy superintendent of the exam at the centre, was booked along with two others -- Parsuram Roy and Arif Vora. Rs 7 lakh in cash was recovered from Bhatt's car which was paid to him by Vora as an advance to help a candidate get onto the merit list, said the police.

As per an understanding reached between the accused and some NEET-UG (National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (Undergraduate) aspirants, the latter were asked to leave blank questions whose answers they did not know. The answers to these questions were to be written once the papers were collected after the exam, they said, quoting the FIR.

A team of district additional collectors and district education officers reached the school on the day of the examination and questioned Bhatt. When they checked his mobile phone, they recovered a list of 16 candidates with their names, roll numbers and exam centres which was sent to his WhatsApp number by co-accused Roy, stated the FIR.

The investigating team seized the teacher's mobile phone, cash and the car from where the cash was recovered and submitted a report to the district collector, who later ordered the registration of an FIR.

The three accused were booked for criminal breach of trust, cheating and criminal conspiracy, a Godhra taluka police station official said.

Source: India Today