Leaking trust: When the State fails its students

The NEET paper leak further exposes systemic inefficiency, demanding credible reforms beyond token assurances.

On the morning of May 3, 2026, over 22 lakh young men and women across India walked into examination halls carrying years of sacrifice – pre-dawn study sessions, family savings strained to their limits, tuition fees borrowed at interest, dreams calibrated to a single number. They were sitting for NEET-UG 2026, the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test, the solitary gateway to MBBS seats in the country. Nine days later, they were told it was all for nothing. The examination was cancelled. A paper had leaked. Again.

The National Testing Agency (NTA) confirmed on May 12 the cancellation of the test. The Government of India has ordered a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The trigger: Rajasthan Police’s Special Operations Group (SOG) discovered a handwritten “guess paper” that had circulated through WhatsApp chains and coaching networks, before it fanned out to Sikar – one of the country’s most concentrated coaching districts. Investigators found that approximately 90 Biology questions and 30 Chemistry questions from that document matched the actual NEET paper. One hundred and twenty questions. Not a coincidence.

What makes this catastrophe doubly unconscionable is that it is not the first time. The NEET-UG 2024 scandal was a national inflection point. The Supreme Court of India was compelled to intervene in a matter that consumed its docket for months. The then Chief Justice DY Chandrachud acknowledged from the bench that the NEET paper leak took place and the sanctity of the exam was compromised. The 2024 leak, traced to organised networks in Bihar and Jharkhand, saw students allegedly paying Rs 30 to 50 lakh each for question papers procured a day before the examination.

In an act of institutional forbearance – not exoneration – the Supreme Court declined to cancel the 2024 examination entirely, citing the devastating impact on 24 lakh students who had appeared and the lack of evidence of a wholly systemic breach. It was a narrow escape. The Court then set about laying down protocols, constituting an expert committee under former ISRO chief K Radhakrishnan, and directing structural reforms to cleanse the examination apparatus.

Parliament additionally enacted the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024.

The question that burns today is stark and simple: what happened to all of that? What became of the Radhakrishnan Committee’s recommendations? What became of the enhanced CCTV protocols, the biometric verification mandates, the sealed-paper transit mechanisms, the intelligence surveillance of coaching networks? If two years after an admitted national scandal – with judicial supervision, expert committee scrutiny, and fresh legislation – the examination machinery could still be penetrated, the reforms were either cosmetic, unimplemented, or both. Either way, accountability must follow.

With only approximately one lakh MBBS seats available against over 22 lakh aspirants, NEET is not merely a test; it is a civilisational filter. A single rank can mean the difference between a government college seat and a decade of private medical college debt. For students from modest or rural households, this cancellation is not an inconvenience; it is a potential collapse of a life trajectory. The psychological toll on aspirants who have spent two, three, or four years in sustained preparation – and who must now wait for fresh dates yet to be announced – is a wound that no press release can address.

Corrective action is a moral imperative

Heads must roll. That is not rhetorical flourish; it is institutional logic. An Education Minister who presides over a recurring examination catastrophe must be called to account before Parliament and before the public. The NTA, which has now presided over multiple high-profile examination failures, must answer whether it has the structural capacity and personnel integrity to administer examinations of national consequence. Merely ordering a CBI probe and rescheduling the test will not suffice. Those steps are necessary but nowhere near sufficient.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is fond of invoking the nation’s youth in his Mann ki Baat addresses. On the eve of competitive examinations, he has spoken warmly of aspirants and their families, of the dreams they carry, of the nation’s investment in its young talent. Those words now demand a reckoning. The Prime Minister who goes on live television to celebrate milestones must be equally forthcoming in moments of institutional failure. He owes this generation of students an explanation: why, despite the 2024 wake-up call, the examination machinery again collapsed; what specific remedial action has been taken; who will be held criminally accountable; and what guarantee can the State offer that the re-examination will be secure. An apology is warranted. A commitment to reform is essential.

The deeper pathology that NEET’s repeated violation exposes is the nexus between organised crime, coaching industry networks, and the examination infrastructure. The paper allegedly circulated for days before the test, passed through multiple hands, and was reportedly sold at escalating prices until it flooded WhatsApp groups overnight. This is not opportunistic mischief; it is a structured criminal enterprise targeting a single-point-of-failure examination. As long as a single paper-and-pen test on a single day determines the fate of millions, the incentive for criminal enterprise will remain overwhelming. Structural reform – disaggregated testing windows, computer-based adaptive examination, multi-stage assessments, independent audit of question-paper custodial chains – is no longer a policy option. It is a moral necessity.

India cannot continue to put 25 lakh futures at risk on the security architecture of a single envelope. The Supreme Court’s patience will not be infinite; more critically, the patience of a generation will not be either. The State owes its students not just a re-examination but a rebuilt system, honest accountability, and the political courage to say, plainly: we failed you, and this is what we are doing to ensure it never happens again.

(The writer is a practising advocate in the Madras High Court)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.