Officer suspended for eating chicken curry during school visit
Bhubaneswar: An Education department officer in Odisha's Sundergarh district had been placed under suspension for eating chicken curry in a school while the children were served rice and dal only under mid-day-meal scheme, officials said on Saturday.
Sundergarh District Collector Nikhil Pavan Kalyan suspended Binay Prakash Soy, Block Education Officer (BEO), Bonai, after a video of the BEO eating chicken curry brought from outside alongside the school children went viral, the officials said.
"Soy is hereby put under suspension with immediate effect pending finalisation of disciplinary proceeding for such gross misconduct, dereliction of duties and inappropriate behaviour during delivery of public service," the order issued by the Collector on Friday said.
The incident took place at Tileimal Project Primary School in Bonai during the visit of the BEO on October 3 before Dusshera holidays. Soy had been to school to review the functioning of the Mid-day Meal (MDM) programme.
The BEO received a warm welcome from headmaster Tupi Chandan Kisan and other teachers as soon as he reached the school. After visiting the MDM kitchen, Soy preferred to sit with the students for lunch.
Though the students were excited to find the BEO sitting among them for the lunch, they were served only rice and dal. However, the Soy and other teachers were served chicken curry and salads, the video showed.
Soy, however, denied the allegation and said that : "The curry served to him was not chicken, but a vegetarian food brought for him by a woman teacher from her house."
The incident has sparked a strong resentment among the local people forcing the district collector to order a departmental inquiry into the matter.
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NEET-UG: 2 more held, role of several NTA officers under scanner; CBI focussing on source of leak
New Delhi (PTI): The CBI has arrested two more persons in connection with the NEET (UG) paper-leak case, with the role of several officers of the National Testing Agency (NTA) and other organisations, who had access to the printing press where the papers were printed, coming under the scanner, officials said on Thursday.
The agency has arrested Dhananjay Lokhanda from Ahilyanagar and Manisha Waghmare from Pune and conducted searches at 14 locations across the country in the last 24 hours, they said.
The CBI is focussing on identifying the source of the leak that has caused massive disappointment to lakhs of aspirants eyeing a seat in undergraduate medical courses, which are allotted after the highly-competitive examination, the officials said.
According to the CBI probe so far, the involvement of public servants in the leak cannot be ruled out.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested three individuals from Jaipur -- Mangilal Biwal, Vikas Biwal and Dinesh Biwal -- along with Yash Yadav from Gurugram and Shubham Khairnar from Nashik.
Khairnar was in touch with Yadav and informed him in April that Mangilal Biwal was ready to pay Rs 10-12 lakh for arranging leaked NEET (UG) 2026 questions for his younger son.
Khairnar allegedly provided 500 to 600 questions from the leaked paper to Yadav, the officials said, adding that the questions could have helped score enough marks to get a seat in a reputed medical college.
Mangilal Biwal allegedly procured the paper from Yadav, who was known to his elder son Vikas Biwal from an NEET coaching in Rajasthan's Sikar. The deal between Mangilal Biwal and Yadav was for Rs 10 lakh, if 150 questions from the question bank matched with those in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) paper, the officials said.
Mangilal Biwal shared the paper with his son and further distributed it among relatives.
Yadav also told Vikas Biwal to find additional candidates for the questions to recover some of the money that he had spent on getting those, the officials said.
An analysis of digital devices has given the agency incriminating chats, leaked question papers and other digital evidence. The CBI will subject the devices to a forensic examination to get the deleted data, the officials said.
The federal agency has registered an FIR and formed teams to probe the alleged NEET (UG) paper leak that resulted in the cancellation of the exam held on May 3.
The NEET (UG) 2026 was conducted across 551 Indian cities and at 14 overseas centres. Nearly 23 lakh candidates had registered for the test, which was administered by the NTA at centres across the country.
According to the NTA, information regarding alleged malpractice was received on the evening of May 7, four days after the examination was held. The NTA said the inputs were escalated to central agencies the following morning for "independent verification and necessary action".
The Rajasthan Police's Special Operations Group (SOG) has claimed that a "guess paper" for chemistry, allegedly circulated among students ahead of the examination, had approximately 410 questions, including roughly 120 that appeared in the test.
