Rohit Pawar alleges MPSC FDA recruitment paper leak | Mumbai News
3 min readUpdated: Jul 27, 2026 05:40 PM IST
Nationalist Congress Party (SP) MLA Rohit Pawar on Monday alleged that the question paper for the Maharashtra Public Service Commission’s (MPSC) Drug Inspector recruitment examination under the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was leaked, and demanded an immediate investigation, claiming the person involved in setting the paper had been compromised.
Addressing a press conference, Rohit Pawar said the recruitment notification was issued on July 29, 2025, and the examination was held on March 22 this year, with around 44,500 candidates appearing. Results were declared on June 12, followed by a provisional merit list on July 22, in which 506 candidates qualified and 150 were selected.
Pawar alleged that a coaching institute in Nandurbar had access to a substantial portion of the question paper before the examination.
“There is a coaching class named Kautilya Academy in Nandurbar. The paper was leaked through a person associated with the institute. I am not saying the entire MPSC paper was leaked, but the individual responsible for setting the paper appears to have been compromised. Students of this coaching class had nearly 90 per cent of the questions beforehand,” he alleged.
He claimed the questions were circulated to students two days before the examination after payment was made. According to Pawar, the material was shared on WhatsApp and deleted within minutes using the “Delete for All” feature, but one student downloaded and forwarded the questions to another person, providing evidence that eventually reached the police.
Pawar displayed what he claimed were copies of the original examination paper and the questions circulated before the exam, alleging they were substantially similar. He said he would meet MPSC officials as well as FDA Commissioner Tukaram Mundhe to press for action.
Responding to the allegations, the MPSC said it had taken the complaint regarding the Drug Inspector (Group B) recruitment examination seriously. However, it said the original complainant, when called for a hearing, informed the commission that he no longer had any grievance and that the initial complaint had arisen out of a misunderstanding.
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MPSC Secretary Mahendra Harpalkar said all evidence and representations received by the commission would be thoroughly examined, and that a formal police complaint would be filed against anyone found responsible.
Pawar further alleged that several recruitment examinations in Maharashtra, including TET, NEET, SRPF, HSC Chemistry, Water Conservation, Public Works Department, Kotwal, Talathi and Mahagenco recruitments, had faced paper leak allegations in recent years.
“Poor students work extremely hard for these examinations. There appears to be a pattern where papers are leaked by taking money to ensure certain people enter the system,” he alleged, while reiterating that he was not claiming the entire MPSC examination had been leaked but that the paper setter had allegedly been compromised.
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