Leak, cancel, repeat: not so NEET, after all

The 13 May arrest by the CBI of Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha district secretary Dinesh Bilwal and his brother Mangilal Bilwal from Ramgarh in Rajasthan for their alleged involvement in the NEET-UG 2026 paper leak has triggered a political storm.

Opposition parties in Rajasthan have alleged that the brothers acted as intermediaries in a larger network involving influential political leaders. The controversy has already led to the cancellation of the NEET-UG exam held on 3 May. It will now be held on 21 June.

Over 22 lakh students appeared for this prestigious and India’s largest medical entrance exam across 5,432 centres. The NEET-UG is a gateway to 1.3 lakh medical seats across India’s medical colleges and the National Testing Agency (NTA), which conducts the exam, earns Rs 1,300 crore just in fees.

Investigators suspect the question paper was sold for Rs 15 lakh to be distributed to students. Rajasthan’s Special Operations Group (SOG) is investigating reports that a handwritten ‘guess paper’ was circulated among students via WhatsApp groups.

Senior officials in the SOG confirmed that over 100 Biology and Chemistry questions matched those in the actual test paper. The document was allegedly circulating among students as early as fifteen days before the test.

The investigation has linked the alleged guess paper to an MBBS student from Churu in Rajasthan, currently studying in Kerala. He is reported to have sent the document to his father who runs a paying guest accommodation in Sikar. The father in turn ‘sold’ these questions to his political contacts and to students. This document was then widely disseminated through coaching networks and messaging apps.

The latest episode puts the spotlight on Sikar’s booming coaching hub once again. Maheshwar Peri, founder of Careers360, claimed in a post on X that Sikar is the epicentre of a widespread network that has gained notoriety for such work. He said the region’s NEET success rate is six times higher than the national average. He further alleged that students in Sikar were summoned for a ‘mock test’ the day before the exam and were coached on these specific questions. He added that similar accusations had surfaced in 2024 but were not looked at with seriousness.

Educationists point to the nexus of politicians, coaching centres and the bureaucracy. One of them claimed that the leaked question paper had been widely circulated before the exam and had created a ‘social media storm’. This strangely went undetected by the NTA.

NTA director-general Dr Abhishek Singh — an IT expert who assumed office only two months ago — defended the agency, saying the examination was cancelled as soon as evidence emerged that some questions matched a PDF circulating online before 3 May.

“With the help of Central agencies, we found that some questions did match a PDF that had been circulating before the exam. Based on this, we took the decision to cancel the exam in line with our principle of ‘zero-error, zero-tolerance’ policy,” Singh said.

Investigators are examining whether the original NEET paper may have been leaked directly from the Nashik printing facility where this year’s papers were printed — a significant shift from the earlier paper leak cases that typically occurred during transportation or distribution.

DIG (retd) Shantanu Sen, a former CBI joint director, said, “Paper leaks occur primarily either where the paper is set or where it is printed. During my 33 years in service, we handled one UPSC paper leak. We solved the case within 15 days. It was the superintendent of the printing press who was responsible for the leak. In the last seven years, however, over 70 paper leaks for major examinations have occurred.”

Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi also targeted the government for the repeated leaks. “In ten years, there have been 89 paper leaks and 48 re-examinations. Every time, the same promises are made, followed by the same deafening silence,” he wrote on X.

Gandhi also posted his concern at learning that former NTA director-general Subodh Kumar Singh, who had been removed from his post following major irregularities in NEET 2024, is currently serving as principal secretary to the chief minister of Chhattisgarh.

****

Questions are also being raised on how the NTA, which does not receive budgetary support from the Central government, meets its administrative costs from money collected as fees from students. A Rajya Sabha committee report noted that the NTA generated thousands of crores as surplus revenue.

In a written response submitted in Rajya Sabha on 31 July 2024, minister of state for education Sukanta Majumdar presented year-wise data on the income and expenditure of the NTA since its establishment in 2018, showing a profit of Rs 488 crore over the past six years.

For more than 22 lakh students who sat for the test on 3 May, the cancellation is traumatic considering the months of preparation that goes into it. For those who belong to disadvantaged communities, the experience is even more painful given that their families have made huge sacrifices to ensure access to expensive coaching and tuition.

While announcing the cancellation on 12 May, the NTA had promised that the exam would be reconducted without fresh registration or examination fees and that the exam fee paid by the students would be refunded. On 14 June, students will be issued fresh admit cards for the 21 June test. The registration data and candidature from the May 2026 cycle will be carried forward to the new exam date.

Ironically, the NTA claims the examination is conducted under a ‘full security protocol’, including GPS-tracked movement of question papers, biometric verification, AI-assisted CCTV monitoring and deployment of 5G jammers.

“If the security is so foolproof, how did such a leak occur?” asks Nikhil Malhotra, a Delhi-based student who appeared for the exam this year.