top of page

By:

Correspondent

21 August 2024 at 10:20:16 am

Merit Mafia

The NEET scandal, which has shaken the futures of nearly 23 lakh students across India, now leads unmistakably to Maharashtra. The alleged ‘kingpin’ of the paper leak racket, according to the CBI, is a chemistry professor from Nashik who ran a private coaching centre. He was a man entrusted with access to examination material through his association with the National Testing Agency and now stands accused of converting that privilege into a criminal enterprise. The symbolism is uncomfortable....

Merit Mafia

The NEET scandal, which has shaken the futures of nearly 23 lakh students across India, now leads unmistakably to Maharashtra. The alleged ‘kingpin’ of the paper leak racket, according to the CBI, is a chemistry professor from Nashik who ran a private coaching centre. He was a man entrusted with access to examination material through his association with the National Testing Agency and now stands accused of converting that privilege into a criminal enterprise. The symbolism is uncomfortable. Over the years, India has grown grimly accustomed to national-level examination scandals emerging from the badlands of governance in Bihar or Uttar Pradesh. Paper leaks, proxy candidates and exam mafias seemed to belong to a familiar geography of institutional collapse. Maharashtra, by contrast, liked to imagine itself above such decay by projecting itself as a modern, educationally enlightened state whose cities drew students from across the country. That illusion now lies shattered. According to investigators, the accused professor allegedly dictated questions and answers during private coaching sessions held in Pune days before the NEET examination. Students copied them down in notebooks. Many later matched the actual paper verbatim. Another accused allegedly charged lakhs while promising leaked papers and medical admissions. For years now, Maharashtra’s educational ecosystem has been drifting towards something predatory. Cities like Pune, once celebrated as intellectual centres, increasingly resemble giant marketplaces of academic anxiety where coaching institutes reign like parallel governments. ‘International schools’ demand fees that verge on extortion. Professional education has become a punishing financial contest in which parents mortgage savings, futures and sanity in pursuit of admissions. Maharashtra has always been a state with a rich progressive educational legacy. But today, Pune’s old sobriquet of ‘Oxford of the East’ carries an unintended irony. The city still produces engineers, doctors and software professionals in enormous numbers. But it also exemplifies the industrialisation of aspiration. Education has become transactional in the crudest sense. Once that transformation occurs, the leap from aggressive commercialisation to outright criminality should come as no surprise. In this light, the NEET leak appears less like a shocking rupture than the logical culmination of a wider moral decline. When educational institutions begin operating like extraction businesses, middlemen and racketeers inevitably emerge to monetise desperation further. Millions of students still cling to the belief that competitive examinations, however unforgiving, offer at least a narrow pathway of fairness. A scandal like NEET corrodes that belief. It seems to suggest honest students that hard work alone may not suffice when others can simply purchase advantage. But Maharashtra should worry about something else too: a drastic reputational decline. A state once synonymous with educational seriousness increasingly risks association with coaching cartels, extortionate fees and examination rackets. When the alleged kingpin of the country’s most notorious entrance-exam leak emerges not from the expected hinterlands of dysfunction but from Maharashtra, it suggests that the rot has travelled far beyond than what anybody imagined.

Knives out in legislature

Updated: Mar 21, 2025

Disha Salian

Mumbai: Death of celebrity manager Disha Salian in 2020 once again rocked the Maharashtra legislature on Thursday. While cabinet ministers Nitesh Rane and Shambhuraj Desai demanded that Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aditya Thackeray be arrested in the case, BJP MLA Amit Satam in the assembly and another BJP member Chitra Wagh in the council demanded that the report of SIT to probe Salian’s death be made public.


Incidentally, amidst repeated disruptions in both the houses, some members from the treasury benches were seen speaking in favour of Aditya Thackeray, while Shiv Sena (UBT) members like Adv Anil Parab were seen supporting the BJP members’ demand that the report of the SIT probe be made public. In addition, there were allegations and counter allegations and personal accusations among members from the treasury and opposition benches which led to heated debate on occasions.


The opposition termed the attempts from the treasury benches to link Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aditya Thackeray’s name in the case, as a ‘conspiracy’.


“I think this matter has gone to the court. We have no idea what he (Disha’s father) has said, but Aaditya Thackeray is a mature leader, a young leader. The Bharatiya Janata Party is conspiring to defame him by putting pressure on him. We don’t need to answer to this conspiracy. The court will answer,” Ambadas Danve said.


Earlier in the day, when the house gathered for the business, Minister of State for Home appraised the assembly of the status in this case. “SIT has been formed to probe in the case. Their report has not been received as yet. However, the government shall act according to directives from the court,” the minister told the house.


Another BJP minister Nitesh Rane, however, said that since Satish Salian has levelled allegations against an MVA minister, that leader be treated like a common person and that everybody should be treated equally before the law. Shiv Sena minister Shambhuraj Desai too supported the demand. “Since the allegations are grave, the person in question should be immediately arrested and the case be investigated,” he said.


Later, while speaking to media in the legislature premises, Rane asked Uddhav Thackeray to come clean on the issue. “If they say that we are politicizing the issue, Uddhav Thackeray should also tell the people why he had called, not just once but twice, to the then union minister Narayan Rane urging him to save his son?” Rane said.


He also accused the opposition of shying away from coming clean on the issue. “If they feel that we are not telling the truth, they should say so in the house. But they are shying away from doing so. Bhaskar Jadhav, who is always aggressive, was nowhere to be seen when this issue came up in the house. Sunil Prabhu too escaped the house under the pretext of a phone call. I challenge them to say that whatever I said on the issue is wrong,” Rane said.


He also said that Aditya Thackeray should resign on moral grounds till his name is cleared in the case.


BJP MLA Amit Satam demanded that the details of the SIT probe be made public so that the people would know if the probe is headed in right direction.


Interestingly, while the ruling parties were targeting the opposition in the case, senior BJP leader Sudhir Mungantiwar surprised all with his unexpected support to Thackerays. “I do not have any evidences in the case. But if her father has made any fresh allegations that needs to be investigated thoroughly. The assembly can discuss the issue at length tomorrow. In the meanwhile, members like Rane, who seem to have some evidences in the case should hand them over to the investigating agencies and help the probe,” he told the house.


Shiv Sena’s Sanjay Gaikwad and Sheetal Mhatre too toed the line and demanded that more and more evidences should come forth.


Similarly, when members of treasury benches were pushing for revealing the details of the probe till date to the public, Shiv Sena (UBT) member Anil Parab supported the demand. “Doing that shall conclusively prove the innocence of Aditya Thackeray,” he said.

Comments

bottom of page