The accused was taken into custody by the CBI officials from the Crime Branch Unit-2 office in connection with the alleged NEET-UG 2026 paper leak in Nashik on May 12, 2026.
| Photo Credit: ANI

New Delhi:

The Supreme Court has directed the National Testing Agency – the under-fire central body responsible for the conduct of the NEET-UG test – to “rectify deficiencies in the exam system”, including using technology to identify faults in its cybersecurity profile to prevent paper leaks.

The court also told the NTA to avoid “flip-flops” in the context of the NEET exam, which was held on May 5 but ran into trouble a month later, when results were declared. Such “flip-flops” do not serve students’ interests, the court told the agency.

“We have highlighted all deficiencies in the structural processes… this we cannot afford for the betterment of the students,” the court said Friday morning.

The bench led by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud has given the centre’s committee – a seven-member panel led by ex-ISRO chief Dr K Radhakrishnan and including former AIIMS (Delhi) Director Dr Randeep Guleria – time till September 30 to present its report. The committee has been tasked with analysing the entire examination process and suggest changes to make it more efficient.

“Report of committee to be submitted by September 30 to the government. Ministry of Education shall report compliance of committee and decision to implement (measures) in two weeks.”

The court offered eight points to guide the committee, including laying out a standard operating procedure, or protocol, for conduct of qualifying exams, a review of process of allotting exam centres and enhanced identity checks of candidates, and CCTV monitoring of exam centres.

Another point was to ensure “secure logistics providers for ensuring non-tampering of question papers”; this is crucial given the 2024 NEET-UG exam papers may have been leaked while they were being transported – in locked boxes – from where they were printed to the exam centres.

On the larger question of leaked exam papers, the court said it was satisfied “there was no systemic breach… the leak was limited to Patna (in Bihar) and Hazaribagh (in Jharkhand)”.

The Hazaribagh leak has been flagged as ‘Ground Zero’ by the CBI, which has been tasked with investigating a nation-wide ‘solver gang’ racket that leaks question papers. The agency has made multiple arrests since, including a man called Rakesh Ranjan, alias Rocky, the alleged kingpin.

READ | CBI Arrests ‘Rocky’, Alleged Mastermind In NEET Paper Leak Case

The central agency has also filed its first chargesheet in this case. It has named 13 people, including four candidates, a junior engineer and two individuals labelled as ‘kingpins’.

READ | Candidates, Parents, ‘Kingpins’ Named In CBI’s 1st NEET Chargesheet

Stating parents of some students had also been named, officials said the agency would file at least one supplementary chargesheet as investigations proceed.

The Chief Justice also observed there is a need to have counselling programmes to ensure mental welfare of students, as well as training for staff and management to handle such concerns.

“Can’t Conclude Sanctity Breached”

Last week the court ruled out a full re-test. Hearing a clutch of petitions asking for the exam to be held again, the court said it was not satisfied there was a large-scale breach of its “sanctity”.

READ | No NEET Re-Exam, Court Says “Can’t Conclude Sanctity Breached”

The court admitted the paper had been leaked but said there was no material on record to conclude “the result of the exam was vitiated”. “Data on record is not indicative of a systemic leak of the question paper, which would lead to the destruction of the sanctity of the exam…” the court said.

“The court is (also) mindful of the fact directing a fresh exam would have serious consequences on students, including destruction of admission schedule, effects on education, and availability of medical professionals in the future.”

The controversy over the exam, held May 5, broke after red flags were raised over the number – 67 – of perfect scores, including a coaching centre in Haryana’s Bahadurgarh that produced six on its own.

There were also questions over the award of ‘grace marks’ for 1,563 students.

A retest for those 1,563 was held, but hundreds did not appear and many of those who did scored significantly fewer marks. This included the six from the Haryana centre; they got only 682 this time.

There was also a separate row over two ‘correct’ answers for one question in the Physics section.

READ | The NEET Question Court Asked IIT To Solve, And What They Answered

The Supreme Court referred the question to experts from IIT (Delhi). Subsequently, students who had picked what the experts said was the incorrect answer lost four marks. At least 44 students, who chose the alternative answer, received “grace marks” and achieved a perfect score of 720/720.

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New Delhi:
The Supreme Court will today pronounce its judgment containing reasons for not canceling the 2024 NEET-UG medical entrance exam, despite a raging controversy over paper allegations and other irregularities in the exam.

Here are 10 updates on the big story:

New Delhi:
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has shared details about its probe so far into the NEET paper leak case. In a statement, the CBI said it started investigating the case from June 23, after it took over the first information report (FIR).

Here’s your 10-point cheat sheet to this big story

New Delhi:
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has shared details about its probe so far into the NEET paper leak case. In a statement, the CBI said it started investigating the case from June 23, after it took over the first information report (FIR).

Here’s your 10-point cheat sheet to this big story

New Delhi:

There has been no incidence of paper leakage reported in the recruitment examinations conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), Staff Selection Commission (SSC), Railway Recruitment Board (RRB) and Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS), during the last two years, the Rajya Sabha was informed on Thursday.

“Recently, National Testing Agency (NTA) conducted NEET(UG) examination on May 5, 2024 in OMR (Pen and paper) mode. Certain cases of alleged irregularities/cheating/impersonation/malpractices were reported,” Union Minister of State for Personnel Jitendra Singh said in a written reply.

After review, the matter was entrusted to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for comprehensive investigation on June 22, 2024, he said.

“No incidence/event of paper leakage has been reported in the recruitment examinations conducted by Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), Staff Selection Commission (SSC), Railway Recruitment Board (RRB) and Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS), during the last two years,” Mr Singh said.

In order to provide for prevention of unfair means in public examinations, the government has enacted the Public Examination (Prevention of Unfair means) Act, 2024, which has been brought into force vide and subsequently rules under this law have also been notified, he added. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Patna:

Bihar, one of the epicentres of several paper leaks, including that of the NEET-UG test, has passed a stringent bill to curb malpractices in government exams. 

The Bihar Public Examinations (PE) (Prevention of Unfair Means) Bill, 2024, was tabled by state Parliamentary Affairs Minister Vijay Kumar Chaudhary on Wednesday and passed with a voice vote amid a walkout by the opposition. The walkout was to protest lawlessness and the denial of special status to Bihar. 

The Bill, which had first been introduced in the monsoon session, has strict provisions, including a prison term of up to 10 years and a fine of Rs 1 crore for those found guilty of involvement in irregularities in exams for both individuals and organisations. It also has a clause for attaching the properties of those found guilty and makes it difficult for people arrested for exam irregularities to get bail. 

While passing its order on Tuesday in which it said there would be no retest for NEET-UG, the Supreme Court bench led by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud had also noted that the paper for the exam had been leaked for at least two centres, in Bihar’s Patna and Hazaribagh in Jharkhand. 

Bihar has seen several paper leaks for state-level tests and gangs from the state have also been found involved in leaking papers or tampering with the examination process for national entrance exams. 

The state’s paper leak bill follows the notification of a central law last month. 

Under the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024, which was notified on June 21, any person or persons found guilty of leaking a paper or tampering with answer sheets will receive a minimum jail term of three years. This can be extended to five years with a fine of up to Rs 10 lakh. All offences under the Act will be cognisable and non-bailable.

Examination service providers who have knowledge about a possible offence but do not report it can be fined up to Rs 1 crore.

During the investigation, if it is established that any senior official from the service provider had allowed or was involved in committing the offence, he will face imprisonment for a minimum of three years, which can go up to 10 years, and a fine of Rs 1 crore. 

If the examination authority or the service provider commits an organised crime, the jail term will be a minimum of five years and a maximum of 10, and the fine will remain Rs 1 crore.

Nearly 24 lakh students had appeared for the NEET-UG 2024 for undergraduate medical courses, which is conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA), on May 5. The results were announced on June 4, 10 days before schedule, but allegations of question paper leaks and grace marks to over 1,500 students triggered protests. Cases were also filed in courts, including the Supreme Court.

New Delhi:

The CBI has arrested a man called Rakesh Ranjan, alias Rocky, who is believed to be the kingpin in the NEET paper leak case, sources said Thursday afternoon.

Ranjan has been sent to the agency’s custody for 10 days. This comes as the CBI is also raiding four locations – two near Patna in Bihar and two near Kolkata in West Bengal – in this case.

Over a dozen people, including the principal and vice-principal of a school in Jharkhand’s Hazaribagh, have been arrested so far, as various state police forces and the CBI investigate a national racket that involves leaking of question papers for competitive exams like NEET.

NDTV Explains | If No Paper Leak, Why Arrests, And Other Big Questions

Last week a student was arrested from Patna.

The CBI has, excluding Rocky, arrested eight people in connection with this case.

Tasked with investigating the nation-wide exam paper racket, the agency has so far filed six FIRs, or first information reports, including five for three separate cases in Bihar.

On Wednesday CBI sources told NDTV the NEET paper leak may have had its origins in the Hazaribagh school. Papers leaked from there also made their way to Bihar, a CBI official said.

READ | NEET-UG Paper Leak Had Genesis In Hazaribagh: CBI Officials

Explaining the sequence of events, the CBI official said nine sets of papers for the exam, which was supposed to be held on May 5, reached a State Bank of India branch two days earlier for safekeeping. From there, two sets were transported to the Oasis School in Hazaribagh, which was a centre for the exam, and the seals on them were broken by the time they reached the school.

Agency sources said Rocky was present when the question papers were unsealed.

He took photos of the questions and shared them with ‘solver gangs’, the name given to an organised racket that provides answers to leaked papers. These were then shared with exam candidates, for prices running into the lakhs, who were trying to cheat. Rocky is also linked to another key figure in this racket, Sanjeev Mukhiya, who has been involved in this scam for two decades and is on the run.

READ | Who is Sanjeev Mukhiya? Alleged Mastermind Of NEET Paper Leak

The arrest of Ranjan, or Rocky, could bust the NEET case wide open even as the courts debate the extent of the leak of question papers. The government and the testing agencies both say the leak has been limited to localised regions and a few students.

CBI sources said that while it is not clear exactly where the papers were leaked from, what the evidence points to is the fact that it was: either from the bank branch, while in transit to the school, or from the school itself.

The NEET-UG exam is taken for admission to undergraduate medical courses.

Controversy – nearly 24 lakh students took the May 5 exam – broke last month after results were declared. The first red flags were the unusually high number of perfect scores; a record 67 students, including six from one coaching centre, scored a maximum 720. Questions were also asked over the award of ‘grace marks’ – not exam protocol, the NTA said – to 1,563 students.

Questions were also asked over the award of ‘grace marks’ to 1,563 students.

A retest for those students was held last week, but hundreds did not appear.

The entire row has made its way to the Supreme Court, which had served a notice to the under-fire NTA, or National Testing Agency, which is the central body that conducts the NEET exam.

The NTA today defended itself against claims the NEET paper had been leaked on popular messaging app Telegram, calling those images a “fake”. In an affidavit filed on Wednesday the NTA said the screenshots shared on Telegram were “fabricated”.

READ | “Manipulated”: Exam Body On “Fake” NEET Paper On Telegram

The NTA also claimed no NEET-UG question paper was found to be missing, and that no locks (of boxes containing the papers) were broken in Bihar.

READ | Why So Many NEET-UG Toppers? Exam Body’s Reply In Court

Further, the NTA also sought to explain why there were an unusually high number of high-scoring results in this year’s exam, saying “differences in new and old editions” of a textbook meant there were two correct options to one question. Removing that, the agency said, the actual number of toppers was only 17, “which is not significantly higher in numbers than previous years”.

The court is hearing a clutch of petitions seeking cancellation of the NEET-UG 2024 exam.

However, on Monday, the court said it was not for such a step.

READ | “Retest Our Last Option, Panel Must Probe Paper Leak”: Supreme Court On NEET

The three-judge bench led by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud said it therefore was loathe to order a re-test for nearly 24 lakh students – many of whom come from poor families and could ill-afford to spend money travelling to exam centres – unless necessary. A re-test is the “last option”, it said.

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New Delhi:

New questions have emerged in the NEET-UG case regarding the over a dozen arrests made by the Bihar Police and the CBI even after the National Testing Agency claimed that the question papers for admissions in medical colleges were not leaked.

Sources said a key question is why would the police in Patna and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrest the people if there was no paper leak?

Investigators suspect that at least 15 students from other states gave the NEET-UG at a particular centre in Gujarat’s Godhra, from where many have been arrested too.

In Bahadurgarh, the principal of the school that served as an exam centre claimed that students got enough time to finish their papers, but the National Testing Agency (NTA) still gave them grace marks.

For the first time in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET undergraduate or UG), the number of students scoring 700 had increased five times. The number of students who got over 710 rose by 900 per cent. The spike is such that 23 students scored 710 out of 720 marks in 2021, 12 in 2022, 48 in 2023, and 500 this year.

Sources said another ostensibly suspicious matter was the NTA’s delayed response to the Bihar government’s request for information about the series of papers set on fire on May 19. The NTA gave the information only on June 21 after much reprimand by the Union Home Secretary.

CBI sources said they have gathered enough evidence to show the paper leak happened just hours before the NEET exam began in Bihar’s Hazaribagh. The NTA, however, maintains no question paper was found missing from storage.

There are also allegations that screenshots of fake question papers were edited to make them seem genuine and circulated among students and others in a bid to sabotage the exam. This indicates some vested interests want to make the NEET exam controversial.

Earlier, it was told that 1,600 students may have benefited from the allegedly leaked NEET-UG papers. Later, it was claimed only 153 students may have benefited, but there is no information about these 153 students, such as where was their exam centre?

Sources said only 11 people in the NTA have been entrusted with the responsibility of conducting offline and online exams of more than 50 lakh students. They collect Rs 250 crore a year from the NEET exam alone, but spend only Rs 90 crore in conducting the exam.

On Wednesday, the Centre told the Supreme Court there was neither any indication of “mass malpractice” nor a localised set of candidates being benefitted leading to abnormal scores in NEET-UG 2024. It said the data analytics of results of NEET-UG 2024 was conducted by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras and as per the findings given by the experts, the marks distribution follows the bell-shaped curve that is seen in any large-scale examination indicating no abnormality.

Representational image of lawyers at the Supreme Court in New Delhi
| Photo Credit: PTI

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