NCRA staffer booked under Official Secrets Act for alleged question paper leak

A staffer of the Pune-based National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA) was booked under Official Secrets Act for allegedly leaking a question paper of the 'Work Assistant' recruitment examination held in May 2025, a police official said on Monday. Vivek Baban Hadawale, a resident of NCRA Colony in Pune, was booked under section 5 of Official Secrets Act and sections 316(2) and 316(5) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) on the complaint of Vaibhav Pandurang Sherkar (35), a vigilance officer with Mumbai's Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), he said.

As per the FIR registered at Chaturshringi police station, a written examination for the recruitment of Work Assistants was conducted at the NCRA centre at Savitribai Phule Pune University campus on May 24 last year. In June 2026, the vigilance department received a tip-off about the alleged question paper leak during the recruitment process. Sherkar met the informant on July 31 this year, who claimed that the question paper had been received through WhatsApp from Hadawale's mobile phone at around 7.15 am a day before the examination.

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"The informant handed over printed copies of the question paper and screenshots of the WhatsApp messages to the vigilance department. Sherkar also took photographs of the informant's mobile phone screen, which showed an image of the question paper pattern," the complaint stated.

The vigilance department compared the question paper received from the informant with the original question paper and found that the two matched, Sherkar said in the complaint. Based on the complaint, an offence was registered against Hadawale for allegedly disclosing confidential examination material and violating the Official Secrets Act, the official said, adding further investigation is underway.