NEET-UG paper row: Parliamentary panel grills top NTA officials; defiant exam body refuses to call it 'leak'

The CBI, which is leading the investigation, has identified an organised syndicate behind the leak. The agency has arrested ten individuals across Delhi, Jaipur, Gurugram, Pune, Latur and Ahmednagar.

New Delhi: The Centre is mulling a combined exam for engineering and medical entrance in the wake of the paper leak in the NEET-UG. It is also looking at a system that does not depend on external agencies for setting question papers.

These are some of the proposals that the senior ministry officials  gave during a deposition in front of a Parliamentary Standing Committee headed by Congress MP Digvijaya Singh. The meeting turned confrontational with the BJP MPs defending the ministry. 

Higher education secretary Vineet Joshi and National Testing Agency (NTA) Chairperson  Abhishek Singh deposed in front of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports on Wednesday over the NEET-UG 2026 paper leak, even as the CBI investigation that has so far resulted in ten arrests.

The panel, chaired by senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh, convened Thursday's meeting primarily to review two issues — the progress of the probe into the NEET-UG 2026 paper leak, and the status of implementation of the K Radhakrishnan Committee's recommendations on NTA reform, a report commissioned after examination controversies that surfaced in 2024.

“When the future of 22 lakh students is on the line, we want to ask them why and how did this happen, and what could have been done to stop it,” Singh told reporters ahead of the meeting.

Sources who attended the meeting said that the NTA proposed that to reduce the risk of malpractice, it will grant access to the question-setting process only to those strictly needed, and gradually, stop hiring external test-delivery agencies. The NTA said that it plans to have its own software and hardware systems.

There is also a proposal to have a combined exam for engineering and medical in line with NEP 2020. 

The meeting also saw a defiant NTA refusing to accept the word “leak”, with them contending that only after the conclusion of the CBI investigation can it be called so. The NTA found support from NDA MPs part of the panel.