Cuttack: The Orissa High Court has granted bail to eight accused in connection with the Special Odisha Teacher Eligibility Test (OTET) question paper leak case, including former vice-president of the Board of Secondary Education (BSE) Nihar Ranjan Mohanty.

Apart from Mohanty, the court granted bail to data entry operator Jitan Moharana, Ramji Prasad Gupta, Bijaya Kumar Mishra, Jayanta Kumar Rout, Ajay Kumar Sahu, Prasant Kumar Khamari and Sanatan Bishoi.

The court granted bail with conditions. The accused have been directed to cooperate with the investigating agency and not leave the country without permission.

The case relates to the alleged leak of the Special OTET examination question paper before the test. The Crime Branch had earlier arrested the eight persons while investigating the case.

During the investigation, the Crime Branch had gathered crucial information after interrogating the prime accused, Jitan Moharana and Bijaya Mishra. According to investigators, Moharana accessed the question papers from the laptop of the BSE vice-president using a pen drive before the examination.

He allegedly printed the papers and carried them to Nayagarh, where they were handed over to Mishra’s brother. Investigators said Mishra later transferred Rs 2.5 lakh to Moharana through UPI.

The leaked papers were later sent to Ambodala in the Rayagada district. There, accused Prasant Kumar Khamari, a teacher at a government upper primary school in Bhejipadar near Bhawanipatna, reportedly translated the questions using Google Translate and rewrote them by hand to conceal the leak.

The Crime Branch had also questioned several others, including Mishra’s brother, the driver who accompanied Moharana and a woman data entry operator from the BSE vice-president’s office to determine how the laptop was accessed and why the activity went unnoticed.