NEET-UG paper leak: NTA chief says matter handed to CBI, won't charge additional fee for re-exam

NTA, on Tuesday, May 12, cancelled the NEET-UG 2026 exam, conducted on May 3 this year over widespread allegations of paper leak.

As outrage continues over the cancellation of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test - Undergraduate (NEET-UG) 2026 amid allegations of a paper leak, National Testing Agency (NTA) Director General Abhishek Singh said that a re-examination will be conducted in “a fair manner.”

“We will conduct a re-exam for students and it will be done in a fair manner. We have also decided that we will not charge any additional fee for the re-exam, we will also refund the fee charged in the first exam,” Singh said on Tuesday, May 12.

Addressing the media, Singh said the NTA first received information on the night of May 7 alleging that certain questions being circulated on WhatsApp were identical to those in the NEET-UG examination conducted earlier that month.

“It was our job to verify those allegations,” Singh said, adding that the agency also investigated whether the PDFs had been accessed before the examination date on May 3. According to him, authorities found that some questions indeed matched the official paper and that the material had been present on the phones of a few individuals as early as May 1 and 2.

Calling the development a violation of the agency’s “zero tolerance policy”, Singh said the decision to cancel the examination was taken in the interest of students. “This would have impacted the future of students preparing hard for the exam,” he said.

Singh said the matter has now been handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation. “All accused will be nabbed and jailed so that the future of students are not adversely impacted,” he said.