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It happened again. Two years after the NEET-UG 2024 scam that rocked the nation, sparked mass protests and led to Supreme Court intervention, NEET-UG 2026 has brought India to the same predicament, but with an even deeper rot.
The CBI registered a case on May 12, 2026, on the basis of a written complaint from the
Ministry of Education regarding the alleged leakage of NEET-UG 2026 Papers. What
investigators found was not a student with a photograph of a question paper. It was a physics lecturer who was at the very centre of the exam-setting process.
A teacher, Manisha Sanjay Havaldar of Pune, had been appointed as an expert by the
National Testing Agency (NTA) and was given full access to the physics question papers.
The investigators stated that she shared some physics questions with another co-accused,
Manisha Mandhare, who was arrested on May 16. The questions shared were in the same
pattern as the questions asked in the NEET-UG 2026 paper sets.
At present, 11 people have been arrested from Delhi, Gurugram, Jaipur, Nashik, Pune, Latur and Ahilyanagar. According to investigators, they have been able to trace the source of the leak and have identified some middlemen who took lakhs of rupees from students and arranged for coaching sessions in advance and shared some questions that were expected.
The geographic pattern of the arrests speaks volumes: not a local leak! It was a network.
The 2026 scandal is impossible to understand without revisiting the 2024 incident. On May 5,2024, nearly 2.4 million students sat for NEET-UG. By evening, Patna police had arrested 13 people — including four examinees — who had allegedly paid between ₹30 lakh and ₹50
lakh to obtain the question paper beforehand.
An unprecedented 67 candidates had scored a perfect 720 out of 720, a statistical
impossibility that triggered protests across the country. The NTA initially called all
allegations "baseless." The Supreme Court eventually acknowledged a leak had occurred but ruled there was no evidence of systemic failure and declined to order a re-examination,noting that at least 155 students had directly benefited.
For those 155 students, there were consequences. For the institution that made the breach
possible, there were committees, reports, and assurances of reform. NEET does not exist in isolation. It is the highest-profile manifestation of a problem that has plagued India’s examination system for decades. In 2015, the AIPMT — NEET’s predecessor saw answer keys circulated through electronic devices, prompting the Supreme Court to scrap the exam entirely.
The Vyapam scam in Madhya Pradesh exposed systematic manipulation of exam processes that was covered up for years by powerful interests. In 2015-2023, there have been more than 50 paper leaks in Government recruitment exams in eight states, putting the future of over 1.4 crore aspirants at risk. Rajasthan recorded 14 cases.
Gujarat, another 14. There were at least six in UP from 2017 to 2022. What happened following each scandal? FIRs were filed. Arrests were made. Committees submitted reports. Then, the next exam was breached – quietly, predictably. It is the source of this leak that is the most damning, because it is 2026. The accused was not part of a criminal gang raiding a printing press. She was an expert appointed by NTA. The question paper wasn't stolen; it was shared amongst the process itself.
This is evidence of a structural problem which is beyond the power of biometric attendance
or CCTV cameras at exam centres to solve – that the insider-threat within the exam-setting
machinery has not been sufficiently dealt with in India. The failure of the security protocol is at its very source when the person setting the paper is also the one leaking it.
India has been reacting to paper leaks by strengthening the edges, better transport of question papers, sealing of envelopes, multiple sets of papers, etc., for years. The 2026 case reveals it is the centre that is compromised.
Each NEET-UG 2026 examinee, who has spent years, moved cities and tapped their family
funds for coaching, was entitled to a NEET exam that was utterly free from any possibility of cheating. All they'd received was another system that wouldn’t work for them until they walked through the doors of the hall. The government has enacted Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act in 2024.
But without institutional transformation, it is empty. India must have an independent regulatory body for the setting of exams, put in place some criminal liability for anyone who helps compromise papers, and have a real audit of who is getting appointed as NTA experts. NEET happens once a year. Every time the paper leaks, the dream of thousands of students gets scattered. It’s high time NTA understand this
These pieces are being published as they have been received – they have not been edited/fact-checked by ThePrint.