New Delhi: Subject experts involved in more than one process getting more access than needed, and no surveillance feed to keep an eye on them during working hours at the headquarters are among the broader shortcomings the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has identified as the reasons behind the leak of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET-UG) question papers this year. The agency has also noted the limitation of surveillance footage backup to a maximum of 25 days, because of which a vital section was unavailable.
The CBI has revealed that the National Testing Agency (NTA) Director General Abhishek Singh took five days to respond to the alert of a question paper leak—by one Sikar-based teacher in an email—on the day of the examination. The teacher was alerted by his landlord to a guess paper, whose questions matched those in the original question papers in the examination taken by more than 22 lakh candidates in the country. The NTA chief responded only on 8 May.
In a chargesheet running to over 94 pages, a copy of which ThePrint has accessed, the CBI has highlighted that the NTA subject experts had access to more than one step in the process, allowing them to see the complete set of questions, and enabling them to leak it.
ThePrint had earlier reported that the agency had arrested and charged 13 accused, including the trio of P.V. Kulkarni, Manisha Sanjay Havaldar, and Manisha Mandhare, all subject-matter experts on the NTA panel. Kulkarni was a subject expert in chemistry while Havaldar and Mandhare were experts in physics and botany respectively.
The agency has explained the entire flow of the process in setting up questions for the NEET examination in the chargesheet, stating that there is an item writing stage for each subject in the first step. “In this stage, experts are called to prepare questions and their answer options. Experts do not know whether the questions prepared by them will actually be used in the exam,” the agency says in the chargesheet.
The next step, the agency further documents, is a stage of moderation in which some experts called ‘moderators’ are mandated to select questions for four sets to be prepared for NTA. These moderators, the agency explained, have to prepare 45 questions for each set—a total of 180 questions. “Moderation involves ensuring that the level of difficulty of questions is uniform across sets and the answers proposed are correct. Further they also check that the questions are from within the prescribed syllabus,” the agency has said.
The CBI said that in the next step of the process, subject experts who are called ‘vetters’ are called to solve the questions sets finalised in the previous step by the moderators, and answers are matched with the ones provided by the moderators. “In case of mismatch, Director (NEET) has to resolve it through meeting between moderators and vetters. In the next step, the finalised question sets are translated into vernacular languages by subject experts,” the agency has explained.
There is also a step of called “back translation” in which translators are asked to re-translate the vernacular language questions into English to ensure the context of the question is not lost in translation. “Ideally, the above steps should be done by different experts and the visibility of all the final question sets to any one expert should be avoided to prevent chance of leak from them,” the agency has alleged.
“However, in the process, actually followed for NEET UG 2026 examination, it is found that many experts have been involved in multiple stages. Further, from moderation step onwards, the experts concerned have full access to final sets of questions. This is particularly so in translation/back translation stage as here a single expert can see all four of the final master sets,” it says.
Speaking to ThePrint, the NTA chief said: “I can’t respond to CBI findings, and the matter is sub judice. What we did for re-examination is mentioned in the affidavit filed in the Supreme Court last week.”
Moreover, the agency also documented gaps in the basic infrastructure of the NTA, such as storage of surveillance footage for a maximum period of 25 days and no live feed monitoring control room to keep tabs on the confidential section where subject experts dealt with the questions.
“The confidential section occupies one entire wing of the 1st floor. As regards Closed-Circuit TV (CCTV) monitoring at NTA, backup of only 20-25 days was found. Since confidential section related work of NEET-UG 2026 exam was completed on 07.04.2026 and the instant case was registered on 12.05.2026, no CCTV footage of relevant period was available for investigation purpose,” the CBI alleges in the chargesheet.
“Further there was no dedicated CCTV live feed monitoring control room in NTA as a result the activities of the experts in the confidential hall went unnoticed,” it said.
(Edited by Nardeep Singh Dahiya)
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