Court Allows CBI to Take More Handwriting Samples of Hawaldar
New Delhi: The Rouse Avenue court on Wednesday allowed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to obtain handwriting samples of Manisha Sanjay Hawaldar. He was arrested in connection with the NEET UG Paper leak case. Manish allegedly shared his handwritten Physics question with another accused, Manisha Mandhare. CBI recovered images of hand-written questions from Mandhare’s mobile phone. A protest is ongoing at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi against the NEET UG Paper leak. Special CBI judge Ajay Gupta allowed the application moved by the CBI.
The court accepted the application after considering the submissions of the Government and the fact that the documents to be compared by the CBI’s Forensic Science Laboratory were voluminous. The Examiner of Suspicious Documents (GEQD) stated that the sample handwriting was insufficient, the signatures had already been taken; hence, the additional permission sought by CBI is hereby permitted. “Accordingly, CBI was allowed to collect handwriting/signature samples of accused Manisha Sanjay Havaldar in the concerned jail,” the court said. The court directed the Prison Superintendent to make necessary arrangements for taking the handwriting/signature sample of the accused by CBI officials in the presence of independent witness for three days between 27.07.2026 and 29.07.2026. During arguments, Senior Solicitor General Neetu Singh alleged that accused Manisha Sanjay Havaldar was involved in the NEET (UG) 2026 question paper leak case while sharing handwritten physics questions related to NEET UG 2026 with co-accused Manisha Mandhare.
The agency also said that he also made another accused, Tejas Harshad Kumar Shah, write physics questions and during investigation, handwritten images containing physics question notes were found in the phone of co-accused Manisha Mandhare. It is also stated that CBI allowed taking the handwriting sample of the accused by order dated 30.05.2026; However, since the record of this case is very voluminous, a separate handwriting/signature sample of the defendant is required in order to compare each document fairly and conduct a fair investigation. On the other hand, the accused’s lawyer Manisha Sanjay Havaldar strongly opposed the submissions made by Sr.PP on behalf of the CBI. He moved the application before this court and submitted that the CBI did not state the reason for taking the handwriting sample of the accused.
It was also stated that at the time the handwriting sample of the accused was taken, around 60 pages had been written by the accused and the CBI did not explain how insufficient the pages in question were for comparison. CBI Advocate also stated that the accused is a senior citizen and the said process will result in further harassment of the accused. It was also claimed that the defendant cooperated with the investigation and wrote what was asked of him, therefore, if the sample handwriting was insufficient, the defendant could not be subjected to repeated sample writing in order to compensate for the negligence of the investigating agency.
