On May 12, the National Testing Agency (NTA), acting on inputs from central and law-enforcement agencies about a possible paper leak and examination irregularities in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test – Undergraduate (NEET-UG), 2026, cancelled the entrance exam.
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This isn’t the first time that the exam or the agency conducting it has come under scrutiny over allegations of malpractice. However, this is the first time the annual, all-India medical entrance examination, conducted for admission to over 10 medical courses, has been cancelled. A re-test has now been scheduled for June 21.
Through this exam, students compete for over 2.8 lakh seats for bachelor courses in dental surgery, veterinary science and animal husbandry, nursing, physiotherapy and audiology and speech-language pathology, among others. MBBS remains the most sought-after course, with around 1.29 lakh seats available. Admission to top government medical colleges typically requires a score of 650-720 marks.
The NEET-UG question paper consists of 180 compulsory questions with +4 marks awarded for every correct answer and −1 mark for every incorrect answer. NEET-UG is conducted in 13 languages and is an objective-type (multiple-choice) examination where each question has four answer options. The exam contains MCQs from Physics, Chemistry, Botany, and Zoology.
This year, NEET-UG was held on May 3, with about 22.79 lakh candidates registering for the exam, of whom around 22.05 lakh appeared. The exam was conducted at 5,432 centres across 551 cities in India and 14 cities abroad.
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Following the paper leak, confirmed by the Central Government, it has been alleged that about 120–140 questions in the leaked question paper matched those in the actual NEET-UG 2026 exam. NTA Director General Abhishek Singh said 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 process.
The idea of an all-India common medical entrance exam was first proposed by the Medical Council of India (MCI) in 2010. A decade later, the MCI was dissolved amid allegations of corruption and lack of transparency, and replaced by the National Medical Commission.
Legal challenges
NEET, introduced to create a standardised, single admission test for medical institutions across India, was first conducted in 2013. The exam immediately faced legal challenges from several States and private colleges, prompting the Supreme Court to temporarily cancel it.
In 2016, the Supreme Court restored NEET, and since then it has been the mandatory entrance for admission to government, private, deemed, and central medical institutions, including the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).
Besides the legal battles, NEET also faced allegations of language and syllabus disparities, paper leaks and grace-mark disputes in 2024. The K. Radhakrishnan committee, set up after the 2024 allegations, identified weak links in the system, such as 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. It also recommended biometric verification, encrypted digital paper delivery and hybrid/online testing models.
Following the 2026 NEET-UG controversy, proposed changes for next year’s exam include a likely shift from the offline Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) format to a Computer-Based Test (CBT) mode. Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan announced on May 15 that the government plans major reforms to improve security and transparency.
The K. Radhakrishnan committee has also recommended that the NTA, established in 2017 by the Central Government as an autonomous testing organisation under the Ministry of Education, needs restructuring, along with tighter centre-level security for the exams it conducts. The NTA conducts several exams, including Joint Entrance Examination (Main), Common University Entrance Test, UGC – National Eligibility Test, and several recruitment and fellowship tests.
Published – May 17, 2026 01:25 am IST
