NTA orders retest for NEET UG as CBI probes leak
The National Testing Agency cancelled NEET-UG 2026 on Tuesday, nine days after 2.27 million students sat for the examination across 551 cities, after central agencies confirmed that the question paper had been compromised.
Questions had been available on the phones of some individuals as early as May 1 — two days before the exam.
It is the second time in two years that the NEET-UG has been under a cloud. The testing agency has handed the case to the CBI and said a retest will be scheduled soon.
“We take responsibility for what has happened; it was wrong,” NTA director general Abhishek Singh said at a press conference, in one of the most direct admissions of institutional failure the agency has made since its founding in 2018. “Paper leaks must end with immediate effect.”
The cancellation was triggered by a spree of complaints and police tip-offs that began to trickle in the two days after the exam. Upon verification with central agencies, the match was confirmed.
Singh said the agency had acted on every input it received before the exam — including blocking 120 Telegram channels that were selling fake papers claiming to be genuine — but he pointed to a specific tip-off: a whistleblower’s post-exam alert that proved the breach had already occurred. The leaked PDF had been available on the phones of a few people on May 1 and 2. “This was against our zero-tolerance policy,” Singh said.
“This would have impacted the future of over 22 lakh (2.2 million) students preparing hard for the exam. In their interest, we took this tough step.”
A re-examination will be conducted, Singh said, with the schedule to be announced within the next seven to 10 days. No additional fee will be charged; fees from the first exam will be refunded.
The agency’s effort, Singh said, will be to conduct the re-exam in the shortest possible time so that the academic calendar and admission schedule of medical colleges are not disrupted.
Despite repeated attempts, Singh did not respond to HT’s specific queries on what investigative findings had led to the cancellation decision. Education minister Dharmendra Pradhan refused to respond to media questions on the cancellation.