The Supreme Court on Friday termed the cancellation of NEET-UG 2026 over paper leak as “extremely distressing”, and questioned the National Testing Agency’s (NTA) lack of accountability mechanisms and institutional continuity, while directing the Union government to spell out necessary measures to ensure that incidents like 2024 and 2026 examination violations are not repeated.
Justices PS Narasimha and Alok Aradhe said the repeated failures despite last year’s reforms pointed to deeper institutional shortcomings in the examination system.
“It would be very painful if this happened. We cannot disappoint our students. It’s not just about the student, it’s about the family as well… It’s a lot of emotions and love and time and years of schooling,” the judge noted during the hearing.
The court’s remarks came while examining affidavits filed by the NTA and the Higher Steering Committee (HPSC), headed by former Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) chief K Radhakrishnan regarding the implementation of reforms recommended after the NEET-UG 2024 controversy.
The present proceedings arise out of petitions filed by the All India Medical Association Federation and the United Doctors Front, represented through advocates Tanvi Dubey and Charu Mathur, after the NEET-UG 2026 was canceled on May 12 following allegations of paper leakage.
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Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the court that the recommendations of the expert committee have been largely implemented ahead of NEET-UG 2026 and that additional security measures have been introduced for the re-examination scheduled for later this month.
However, the body repeatedly questioned how another leak of the paper could have occurred despite the presence of the monitoring committee and implementation of the recommendations.
“We want to ask you, you were originally part of the expert committee, how much oversight was done on implementation? How did this failure happen?” The bench asked Radhakrishnan.
Radhakrishnan responded that out of the 60 recommendations made by the committee, most of them have already been implemented while a few are still in progress. He claimed that NEET-UG 2025 was conducted satisfactorily and the state governments and district administrations are now deeply involved in securing the examinations.
However, the court emphasized that the fundamental problem was the lack of clearly defined liability. “The real problem will not stop until real accountability is established,” the report asserted. “Unless duty bearers are identified, it will be a diffuse obligation.”
Read also: NTA plans age ban, tries to cap NEET-UG, claims it wasn’t a ‘paper leak’
When Mehta said that “the buck has to stop somewhere,” the court responded that institutions could not rely solely on individuals.
“The problem in most of our institutions is bias. Knowledge does not trickle down. It is not the individual that has the ability. It is the institution,” the bench observed, while questioning whether the NTA had enough “institutional memory”.
Mehta told the court that NTA was now attracting domain experts from institutions like the IIT system and that new anti-manipulation mechanisms had been put in place, though he refused to disclose operational details publicly.
After recording the affidavits, the bench directed the Union government to submit a comprehensive affidavit detailing how future examinations will be conducted and what permanent institutional mechanisms will be created within the NTA.
“We direct the Union of India… to point out the manner in which institutional memory is laid out through human resource continuity, institutional pluralism through expert formation etc.,” the court ordered.
The endeavor should be to ensure that the NTA has the “material and intellectual means” to prevent incidents similar to the NEET-UG 2024 and 2026 paper leaks, the bench added.
The matter will now be heard in the second week of July.
According to the affidavit filed by NTA, the agency is actively considering shifting NEET-UG from the current pen-and-paper format to Computer-Based Test (CBT) mode in consultation with the Union Health Ministry and the National Medical Commission.
Of all the main exams conducted by NTA, only NEET-UG 2026 continued in pen-and-paper mode, the affidavit noted. She said the expert panel specifically recommended moving to a cognitive behavioral therapy mode coupled with multi-session, multi-stage testing.
The NTA also informed the court that several long-term reforms have been implemented, including setting up of at least 1,000 secure examination centers in government institutions, AI-based CCTV surveillance, blockchain-enabled security infrastructure and international cooperation in examination integrity systems.
AI-enabled monitoring of CCTV feeds has already been commissioned and mobile jammers provided by Bharat Electronics Limited and Electronics Corporation of India Limited have been installed at all 5,432 NEET-UG 2026 examination centres, the affidavit said.
She also said the agency is strengthening cybersecurity infrastructure, reforming testing centers, conducting strict background checks on staff involved in sensitive exams and institutionalizing randomization policies for paper preparers, supervisors and translators.
The NTA also informed the court that AI tools will be used in at least 85% of the translation work in order to reduce human intervention and reduce the possibility of security compromise.
The petitioners in this case sought comprehensive reforms to the examination system, including replacing the NTA with a statutory body with greater accountability and technological capacity to conduct high-stakes national examinations.
The alleged NEET-UG 2026 irregularities are currently being investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which has arrested 13 accused so far in connection with paper leak and cheating cases linked to the exam.
