With the cancellation of NEET-UG (National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test-Undergraduate) exam, the fate of nearly 22.79 lakh students across India has become uncertain.
A whistleblower’s tip-off from Sikar, Rajasthan, to the NTA (National Testing Agency) about a ‘guess paper’ being sold to candidates led to skeletons tumbling out of the cupboard.
On Tuesday, NTA director general Abhishek Singh announced, NEET-UG exam will be conducted again within a week, candidates will not have to fill up their forms afresh, they will not have to pay fees, the fees already paid by them will be refunded, and their exam centers will not be changed.
Key questions arise:
How was the question paper leaked? Why has there been a series of paper leaks in NTA in the past few years?
The modus operandi adopted this time by the paper leak gang was surprising.
The NTA director general revealed that some students had sent to NTA, PDF copies of the paper leaked, and in course of the probe, it was found that many of the questions in the “guess paper” tallied with the questions in the original NEET-UG paper.
NTA had made “foolproof” secure arrangements for conducting the exam. The question paper, after printing, was sent in vehicles equipped with GPS and jammers, while exam centers were also equipped with AI-assist CCTV and advanced technology like 5G jammers.
The gang adopted a different modus operandi. The question paper was leaked before it was printed at Nashik printing press.
All the questions were not copied. Only 150 questions were copied, handwritten and a ‘guess paper’ running into 150 pages was prepared. The guess paper contained more than 300 questions. They included 150 questions from the original NEET question paper.
This was done to mislead agencies if any probe was ordered. The ‘guess paper’ was eventually sold to thousands of candidates. The questions in the ‘guess paper’ that were copied from the original one, totalled 600 marks, while the NEET paper’s total marks were 720.
All the 90 original Biology questions were taken in the ‘guess paper’, without any change in comma and full stops, while 35 out of 45 original Chemistry questions figured in the ‘guess paper’.
Police stumbled upon a WhatsApp group code named Private Mafia, which had nearly 400 members. The group caption says, it has been formed for uploading leaked exam paper, and members were asked not to forward the paper. The paper was uploaded in PDF format in the group on May 1, two days before the exam was due.
The person uploading the paper in the group wrote, he was uploading the NEET-UG 2026 paper, and, for good measure, he wrote, he was guaranteeing that all these questions will come in the exam. The paper was password protected. When the paper was opened, all the questions had come in the exam.
The question is: why only 600 marks worth questions were copied from the original question paper?
Experts say, there could be two reasons. One, to mislead probe agencies so that there should be no suspicions about the paper being leaked, and two, if any candidate scored 600 out of a total of 720 marks, his or her admission to a government medical college is guaranteed.
Since private medical colleges charge Rs 1 crore to Rs 1.5 crore for MBBS admission, the focus of most of the parents is on government medical colleges which charge only Rs 1.25 lakh. This is where the paper leak mafia closes in.
The losers are those genuine candidates, who burn their midnight oil, to score higher percentage in exams.
The probe so far by Rajasthan SOG (Special Operations Group) reveals, a hard copy of the original question paper was leaked from Nashik printing press. It was sent to a doctor in Gurugram, where questions were copied in handwritten format and the handwritten copy was sent to Jaipur.
From Jaipur, the copy reached a person in Jamwa Ramgarh, near Jaipur. This man sold the copy to a coaching institute owner in Sikar. He made several copies and sold it to buyers in AP, Bihar, J&K, Kerala and Uttarakhand for Rs 5 lakh to Rs 20 lakh.
As the May 3 exam date approached, the ‘rate’ of the leaked ‘guess paper’ fell to Rs 30 thousand apiece via WhatsApp. Coaching institute owners frantically prepared their candidates to revise this ‘guess paper’.
Rajasthan SOG has joined most of the dots and 18 persons have been taken into custody.
The mastermind is reported to be one Manish Yadav, who is in custody. A mediator Avinash Lamba and paper distributor Rakesh Mandwaria have also been arrested. A coaching class owner in Sikar has also been nabbed. The man in Ramwa Ramgarh, whose two sons are doctors, has also been arrested.
Nashik police has nabbbed Shubham Khairnar, said to be the man who leaked the hard copy of the paper from printing press. Shubham’s father is a doctor and his brother runs a medical store. Shubham has been handed over to CBI.
The National Testing Agency was set up with fanfare several years ago to provide a world class infrastructure for conducting exams.
In the last nine years, NTA has become a shining example of paper leaks and incompetence. Sometimes papers are leaked during printing, sometimes in course of transport, and in some cases, the paper setter himself leaked the paper.
The icing on the cake was when the NTA director general appealed to students to inform his organization immediately if the question paper is leaked.
What will NTA do in that case? Cancel the exam? Set a fresh date for exam? Hand over the probe to CBI? Is it the only work left for NTA?
Enough is enough. Either NTA prepare a foolproof examination system, or the responsibility of conducting such exams be handed over to somebody else.
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