The National Testing Agency (NTA) has asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to determine whether physics questions from the NEET-UG 2026 exam were also leaked, as investigators have not ruled out that the guess papers in circulation may have been drawn from the NTA’s secret pool of reserve question papers – in addition to chemistry and biology questions that were already sold to students for up to $1,000. $30,000 at least a week before the May 3 test, people familiar with the development said on Wednesday.
Concern about spare paper is partly fueled by the volume of questions in the leaked PDFs – the chemistry document alone contains 104 solved questions, nearly double the 45 that appeared in the actual exam – raising the possibility that the surplus may have arisen from other groups; One of them is likely to be an emergency kit prepared in case the main paper is compromised. A senior Special Operations Group officer in Rajasthan said investigators are not ruling out any possibility on this front, though the NTA termed it as speculation pending the findings of the Central Bureau of Investigation.
“We have acted on any complaint we received. We obtained information about Chemistry and Biology through a whistleblower on the night of May 7, three days after the exam. We have passed any information we have to the CBI and asked them to investigate whether questions from Physics were also distributed in PDF format like Chemistry and Biology,” a senior NTA official said, requesting anonymity.
NTA conducted the NEET-UG exam on May 3, in which over 2.27 lakh candidates attempted 180 questions – 45 each from Physics and Chemistry and 90 from Biology, using pen and paper to take the exam. It received no complaints about physics specifically, canceled the exam on May 12 after at least 120 questions in the leaked material were found to overlap with the actual exam, and scheduled a retest for June 21.
The CBI has arrested 10 people, including Shivraj Raghunath Motigaonkar, founder of a training center in Latur; PV Kulkarni, retired chemistry lecturer from Pune; and Manisha Gurunath Mandhare, a botany teacher in Pune – Both Kulkarni and Mandhare were part of NTA’s NEET-UG 2026 expert panel.
Investigators have established that almost all 90 biology questions and all 45 chemistry questions in the May 3 paper were distributed as guess sheets at least a week before the exam. An independent analysis of the PDF files leaked by HT confirmed the extent of the overlap.
All 45 questions in Section 2 of the Chemistry PDF – spanning pages 23 to 47 of the 104-question, three-section document – matched the original paper exactly. Among them: a question about statements related to molality and molarity; Numerical figure on copper deposited at the cathode after copper sulphate electrolysis for 10 minutes at 1.5 A; Calculate the electromotive force of half-cells with identical numbers; The numerical activation energy has identical values.
“Chemistry matches were accurate. Biology did not match in the same way, but there was great similarity in the wording and language of the questions and the overall volume was significant,” an NTA official said.
This Biology PDF contains 307 solved questions across 31 units of study. Although reproduction was not always precise, the overlap was wide-ranging: the question of sex determination in honey bees; one in which the animal’s individual cells divide mitotically to produce gametes – “drone bee” appears as the correct answer in both versions; A matching type question about the anatomy of flowering plants includes casparian segments, starch sheath, conjunctival tissue and subcellular cells; One distinguishes male from female frogs. and one on molecular, genetic and species-level diversity for products of economic importance.
The material was first featured by a senior teacher at a reputed coaching institute in Sikar, Rajasthan. This person said the PDFs appeared within an hour of the test finishing.
“An hour after the exam ended on May 3, Malik, a junior teacher, shared these PDFs of chemistry and biology, which he had received from his son, who is studying medicine in Kerala. We were shocked. We started analyzing the guess sheets against the original paper. All 135 questions matched, prompting us to call the police and then email the NTA to report a possible leak,” the whistleblower said.
Regarding the redundant questions, the whistleblower directly raised the possibility of the backup paper. He said, “I believe that the rest of the questions came from the spare paper or that someone from within the system informed the perpetrators of the paper that would be used on the day of the exam. I hope that the investigators will reveal the whole truth. Such leaks destroy the future of thousands of students.”
The possibility will be part of the investigation, NTA said. “Regarding speculation about the reserve note and whether any of these questions have come up in the leaked materials, this has now become part of the investigation and will be determined by the CBI investigation,” an official said.
A senior special operations officer in Rajasthan confirmed that the whistleblower informed state investigators of the interference, who later informed the CBI. “Though we have not been able to verify the set of reserve notes, we are not ruling out any possibility. The matter is now with the Central Bank of Iraq for further analysis,” the officer said.
Investigators are still unsure how to extract the questions despite the NTA’s multi-layered security protocol. People familiar with the paper’s preparation process said the leak could only have occurred in printed form from the agency’s “bunker-like” paper preparation area, suggesting insider involvement. The NTA said it gave the CBI the freedom to determine accountability.
“Apart from three or four subject matter experts, the 12-language process involves two sets of translators – one that translates the paper into regional languages and another that independently translates it back into English to check its accuracy. This means that nearly two dozen people are part of the process. But it only takes one bad actor to compromise the system; this does not mean that all participants are dishonest,” said an NTA official.
“Our immediate focus is preparations for the re-examination on June 21,” the official added.
Asked about security changes for the retest, another official declined to provide details. “These are confidential details. We will beef up security and carefully examine every level of paper seizing. We don’t want the exam mafia to know anything they can misuse. Paper leaks are organized crime and we have to be very careful,” the official said.
