Published May 13, 2026 | 7:21 AM ⚊ Updated May 13, 2026 | 7:21 AM
The NTA was created in 2017 with a specific mandate: to bring rigour, standardisation, and credibility to national entrance examinations.
Synopsis: Following the cancellation of NEET UG 2026 after a reported paper leak, medical bodies and public health experts have accused the National Testing Agency of failing to act after similar irregularities in 2024, and have called for the dissolution of both the NTA and the National Medical Commission. The controversy has also raised questions about whether India’s examination system remains fit for purpose amid repeated leaks and growing concerns over fairness and accountability.
From a 2024 scam that was never properly investigated to a 2026 leak allegedly sold on WhatsApp for ₹30,000, the body entrusted with India’s most critical examinations has run out of second chances.
There is a particular kind of institutional failure that is worse than incompetence. It is the kind in which warnings are ignored, culprits are protected, and the same disaster is allowed to happen again. That is the story of the National Testing Agency (NTA) in 2026.
NEET UG 2026 has been cancelled. The CBI has been called in. A consultancy owner in Sikar allegedly received the question paper in April and began selling it, first for ₹5,00,000, then for ₹30,000 on the night before the exam.
A WhatsApp group called ‘Private Mafia’, with more than 400 members, allegedly existed solely to distribute leaked question banks. And 22 lakh students, most from middle-class and working-class families who spent years and lakhs of rupees preparing honestly, have been told to start again.
This is not a system that was caught off guard. This is a system that was warned.
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Dr Lakshya Mittal, Chairperson of the United Doctors Front, has written to the Prime Minister demanding the dissolution of both the NTA and the National Medical Commission. His letter is not simply a reaction to 2026. It is an indictment of what happened, and what did not happen, after 2024.
“The NEET paper leak is not an isolated incident. Its links are directly connected to the widespread paper leak scam of NEET UG 2024,” he wrote. “Despite large-scale irregularities coming to light in 2024, NTA officials allegedly protected the culprits. There was no proper cooperation with the police investigation.”
The main accused in the 2024 case, Sanjeev Mukhiya, was not arrested promptly. The chargesheet was not filed in time. He was granted bail. Dr Mittal’s conclusion is unsparing: “This indicates possible collusion of senior figures at the NTA and ministry level in the paper leak. Had there been a fair and time-bound investigation into the 2024 case, this unfortunate situation might not have recurred in 2026.”
In other words, 2026 did not come out of nowhere. It was made possible by 2024.
On Tuesday, for the first time in its history, the NTA cancelled a NEET UG examination. Its Director General Abhishek Singh faced the cameras and offered an explanation that was, in its own way, remarkable.
“There was an allegation and there was found to be something which would have vitiated the process,” he said. “Otherwise why would we take such a big decision.”
He framed the cancellation not as a failure, but as an act of resolve. “This time around, we declared that there would be zero tolerance towards any malpractice. So, anything that vitiates the process, we can’t encourage the scamsters or people trying to do this again and again.”
He went further. “We have to call their bluff, even if it is a tough decision. It is not easy for NTA, students, or parents. But if we continue to allow these miscreants to do, even in an isolated way, even in one sector, one subject, anything, it is not acceptable. Our philosophy was zero tolerance, and we are sticking to that.”
It is a statement that would carry weight if it were being made in 2017, when the NTA was new, untested, and building its credibility. Made in 2026, after NEET controversies in 2016, 2021, 2024, and now again, after a main accused in the 2024 case was allegedly shielded, bailed, and never properly prosecuted, after the same leak machinery apparently reassembled itself and ran again, it reads less like resolve and more like an institution trying to get ahead of a story it can no longer contain.
Zero tolerance, announced in 2026, is not a philosophy. It is an admission that tolerance existed before.
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The NTA is not a government department. It functions as an NGO, outsourcing the conduct of the country’s most consequential national examinations to private agencies. Dr Mittal calls this “extremely unfortunate”. The UDF’s letter to the Prime Minister is blunter: “When the country’s most important examinations rely on outsourcing, how can paper leaks be prevented?”
It is a question with no comfortable answer.
Rohan Krishnan, Chief Patron of FAIMA, adds another layer of contradiction that is hard to ignore. “NTA charges the most to conduct exams yet the centres are always in bad shape,” he said. High fees. Poor infrastructure. Outsourced operations. And a paper leak mafia that has now allegedly operated across at least two consecutive examination cycles.
The NTA was created in 2017 with a specific mandate: to bring rigour, standardisation, and credibility to national entrance examinations. Nine years later, it has presided over at least four NEET controversies, a CBI probe, and a crisis of confidence so deep that two major medical bodies are now demanding its complete dissolution.
Dr Rohan Krishnan of FAIMA did not hedge. “NTA should be completely removed, and the medical education system should be revamped,” he said. He went further, calling for the resignation of the NTA’s regional directors and appealing to the government to sack them if they refuse. “It is their moral obligation to resign. This is not the first time it has happened.”
His framing of the human stakes is important. “It is a middle-class family’s dream to have a doctor in the family, even today. It is social injustice when something gets in the way of that dream.”
That word, injustice, is doing a great deal of work here. Because what has happened is not merely an administrative failure or a security lapse. It is a story about who gets to become a doctor in India, and whether that is still determined by merit or by the ability to pay ₹30,000 on the night before an exam.
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Dr Ranga Reddy Burri, public health activist and President of the Infection Control Academy of India, is asking a question that goes beyond the NTA. He is questioning the examination model altogether.
“With persistent paper leaks, repeated failures in conduct, and endlessly delayed admissions, the relevance of bodies like the NTA itself is questionable,” he said. “We are in a new AI era where computer literacy is near 100 percent among college students. Maybe it is time to think of alternative testing models rather than pen, paper, print-and-circulate kind of exams.”
He points to a telling contrast. “I was wondering why, for national exams like CAT, or global testing agencies that conduct GMAT, we never hear about leaks.” CAT is conducted entirely online, with questions generated and delivered digitally, making the kind of physical paper trail that allegedly enabled the NEET UG 2026 leak structurally impossible.
Dr Burri’s proposed alternative is radical, but not without precedent. “10+2 marks for UG and undergraduate performance for PG may be a more credible basis for admissions than endless normalisation experiments.” It is a suggestion that will be contentious, but it reflects a deeper frustration: that the current model, however many GPS trackers and 5G jammers are deployed around it, remains fundamentally vulnerable as long as a physical question paper exists somewhere that can be photographed, photocopied, and forwarded.
The UDF’s letter to the Prime Minister does not stop at the NTA. It turns its attention to the National Medical Commission, the body that regulates medical education in India, and finds it equally wanting.
“NMC’s silence on issues such as inspection scams in medical colleges, inhuman duty hours for PG students, non-payment of stipends, and arbitrary fee collection proves that this institution is inefficient and far from accountable,” the letter states.
Dr Burri connects the two failures: “When standards are lowered below zero just to fill seats, alongside persistent paper leaks and a protracted admission process, it is time to seriously question the entrance exam model itself.”
The picture that emerges is of two regulatory bodies, one governing examinations and the other governing medical education, that have both lost the plot. The NTA cannot secure the paper. The NMC cannot secure the standards. And in the gap between them, a generation of students is being asked to pay the price.
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The United Doctors Front’s letter to the Prime Minister lays out five demands that amount to a complete overhaul of the system.
First, the immediate dissolution of the NTA, with a joint investigation into both the 2024 and 2026 cases by an independent agency. Second, the dissolution of the NMC and its replacement with a transparent, accountable government body. Third, a foolproof examination system conducted by a government body with UPSC-level standards. Fourth, a national policy on duty hours, stipends, and mental health for medical students. Fifth, that student welfare be made paramount across the entire pipeline, from admission to graduation.
The UPSC comparison is pointed. The Union Public Service Commission, which conducts India’s civil services examinations, has not faced a comparable paper leak scandal. It is a government body, not an NGO. It does not outsource its core function. Whether its model can be adapted to the scale and complexity of NEET is debatable, but as a benchmark of institutional credibility, the contrast is impossible to ignore.
FAIMA’s Dr Rohan Krishnan put it simply: “It takes ten years to acquire the basic minimum skills to become a doctor.”
Ten years of training, built on the foundation of one examination. An examination that has now been compromised in 2016, 2021, 2024, and 2026. An examination administered by a body that allegedly protected its own accused, outsourced its most sensitive functions, and charged the highest fees while delivering the least secure infrastructure.
And now, an examination whose Director General stands before the cameras and says “zero tolerance”, two years after the last scandal was quietly buried.
Dr Burri’s warning is the one that should keep policymakers awake at night. “This is not just about the suffering of students. When the system is so badly gamed, the ultimate victims will be society at large. We will end up with poorly trained doctors, putting patients’ lives at risk. A compromised selection process today means compromised healthcare tomorrow.”
The CBI is now investigating. A new exam date will be announced. The cycle, as Dr Karthik Nagula of HRDA noted, will repeat: leak, cancel, re-examine, stricter measures, repeat.
Unless, this time, someone in authority decides that the NTA’s Director General calling the bluff of miscreants is not nearly enough. And that the institution enabling those miscreants, cycle after cycle, needs to be called to account itself.
