Nearly two weeks after the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test – Undergraduate (NEET-UG), 2026, exam was conducted and later cancelled, the Central Government has been able to trace the question paper leak to the first stage. This all India high-stakes exam taken by over 22 lakh students for over ten courses in the medical field will now be re-held on June 21.

So far, nine people have been arrested. In the net are question paper-setters, translators, and professors from various institutes. A retired professor from Pune is said to be the source of the paper leak which has culminated in the entire exam being cancelled on May 12. Following the paper leak, which has been confirmed by the Central Government, it is alleged that about 120–140 guess questions in the leaked question paper matched the actual NEET-UG 2026 exam paper.

The National Testing Agency (NTA), which conducts the exam, said that the cancellation was initiated following inputs from central and law-enforcement agencies indicating possible paper leak and examination irregularities. NTA director General Abhishek Singh maintained that the exam “cannot be permitted to stand” and that the decision to cancel it was taken to preserve the transparency, fairness, and credibility of the examination process.

Through this exam students get admission into various courses including -- dental surgery, veterinary science and animal husbandry, nursing, physiotherapy and audiology, and speech-language pathology besides other courses. MBBS with 1.29 lakh seats is the coveted course with a seat in government colleges needing a score of 650-720 marks.

The NEET-UG question paper consists of 180 compulsory questions where +4 marks are awarded for every correct answer, −1 mark for every incorrect answer and 0 marks for unanswered questions. Conducted in 13 languages the paper has multiple-choice questions from Physics, Chemistry, Botany, and Zoology. This year 22.05 lakh students appeared for the exam conducted across 5,432 centres, 551 cities in India and 14 cities abroad.

Both NEET, first held in 2013, and NTA have been under scrutiny for security breach. The K. Radhakrishnan committee, set-up after the 2024 allegations of grace-marks dispute stated that there are major weak links in the system including -- overdependence on outsourced staff and private centres, weak CCTV and surveillance systems, insecure transport and storage of question papers, and the risk of conducting a massive pen-and-paper exam for over 20 lakh students on a single day.

The panel also recommended biometric verification, encrypted digital paper delivery and hybrid/online testing models. The Government has now proposed change for next year’s exam includes a likely shift from offline Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) mode to Computer-Based Test (CBT) mode. Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan announced, earlier this week that the government plans major reforms to improve security and transparency.

The idea of an all-India common medical entrance exam was initially proposed by the Medical Council of India (MCI) in 2010. The idea was to create a standardised, single admission test for medical institutes across India. For this the NTA was roped in. The Agency’s mandate is to conduct transparent, standardised, and efficient entrance examinations for higher educational institutions. It conducts exams including – Joint Entrance Examination (Main), Common University Entrance Test, University Grants Commission – National Eligibility Test (for Assistant Professor and Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) in Indian universities and colleges), and several recruitment and fellowship tests, among others.

The Agency too has been over the years been questioned about technical glitches in online examinations, delays in result declarations, normalisation and percentile calculation methods, and alleged irregularities in exams like NEET and UGC-NET and others. The agency was under intense scrutiny during the NEET-UG 2024 grace-marks controversy. And now the recent controversy has brought into focus again the need for adequate security measures and accountability to ensure that hardworking, meritorious students are not harassed.