NEET controversy: Apex court questions exam body’s accountability
Supreme Court criticised NTA for failing to learn from past NEET paper leaks and sought responses from Centre, NTA and CBI on demands to replace it with a stronger autonomous body. It ordered affidavits on exam security reforms
New Delhi: It’s sad that the NTA has not learnt lessons from the earlier NEET paper leak, the Supreme Court said on Monday as it sought the response of the Centre, NTA and CBI on pleas for the replacement of the testing agency with a robust and autonomous body to conduct the medical entrance exam.
A bench of Justices PS Narasimha and Alok Aradhe directed that a copy of the petitions be served to Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, besides other parties, and asked the National Testing Agency (NTA), which is responsible for conducting the NEET exam, to file an affidavit by Thursday on compliance of directions issued by the court in 2024.
“It’s sad that they have not learnt their lessons. The matter travelled to this court earlier also. There was a committee, a monitoring committee which made some recommendations, and they were accepted. We want the NTA to file an affidavit on the steps taken for compliance of recommendations suggested by the committee,” the bench said.
The top court, which issued notice on a plea filed by the Federation of All India Medical Association (FAIMA), through lawyer Tanvi Dubey, said it is tagging all similar matters together. It directed the Centre-appointed committee led by former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chief K Radhakrishnan for the overhaul of the functioning of the NTA to detail the steps taken in compliance with its directions. All the parties were directed to file their responses within three days by the court, which listed the matter for further hearing on Friday.
The medical body has urged the top court for direct restructuring or replacement of NTA with a robust and autonomous system to conduct NEET-UG, citing a “direct assault” on the fundamental rights of over 22 lakh students through recurring paper leaks.
It has also sought a direction to appoint a high-powered monitoring committee until a fresh body is formally constituted to oversee the re-examination. It further said the committee should comprise a retired Supreme Court judge as the chair, along with a cybersecurity expert and a forensic scientist, to ensure that no further leaks occur.
The undergraduate-level National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) held on May 3 by the NTA for admissions to medical education programmes was cancelled on May 12 amid allegations of paper leak, which are now being probed by the CBI.
In 2024, after the question paper leak of the NEET-UG examination, the top court had refused to cancel the exam but passed various directions aimed at tackling paper leaks and also a criterion for cancelling public exams.
The top court had expanded the mandate of the Radhakrishnan committee and directed it to recommend reforms on examination security, transportation of papers, CCTV surveillance, candidate verification, encryption protocols, technological safeguards, real-time monitoring, grievance redressal and adoption of international best practices. After the cancellation of the NEET-UG 2026 examination on May 12, several petitions have been filed in the apex court.
The FAIMA petition said that the Rajasthan Police Special Operations Group (SOG) uncovered that “guess papers” circulated on WhatsApp and Telegram contained 120 questions identical to those in the actual Biology and Chemistry sections of the NEET-UG 2026 paper. Despite the NTA’s claims of using high-tech security, including 5G jammers, GPS tracking and AI-monitored cameras, these measures existed “only on paper”, the plea alleged.
It sought a direction to the CBI to file a status report before the apex court within four weeks regarding the investigation into the paper leak, including the network identified, arrests made, persons charged and progress of prosecution. For “transparent detection of anomalies”, the NTA be asked to “forthwith publish centre-wise results (as and when available) of NEET-UG 2026”, the plea said.
“NEET-UG is a national-level examination for undergraduate medical admissions in India, directly affecting the academic and professional futures of over 22.7 lakh students. The recurring instance of systemic failure is a direct assault on the fundamental guarantees of equality and right to life/livelihood under Articles 14 and 21,” it said.
The current system used by the NTA to conduct exams is without proper safeguards, it contended, adding that despite repeated paper leaks over the years, the authorities have “failed” to implement requisite changes to protect the exam’s integrity. “They continue to rely on risky, old-fashioned methods like physically printing question papers and using private couriers for transport, making them prone to leaks,” it said.
The petitioner highlighted that this is not an isolated incident. Drawing parallels to the 2024 paper leak, it said that the NTA has failed to learn from the past mistakes. The petition referred to previous judicial observations regarding unauthorised access to strongrooms and the “highly sensitive” transportation of papers via e-rickshaws and private couriers.
The cancellation of the exam has left over 22 lakh medical aspirants and their families anxious about the next steps, including the fresh examination date, admit cards, examination centres and the counselling timeline, it noted.
