Leaks, manipulations, cancellations across exams

The NTA record: Leaks, manipulations, cancellations across exams

It was in 2017 that the Union Cabinet approved the creation of the National Testing Agency (NTA), a specialised body to conduct entrance examinations for admission to higher education institutions, as an alternative to exams previously conducted by multiple agencies, many of which had faced allegations of leaks and malpractices. The NTA was subsequently established on May 15, 2018 — exactly eight years ago on this day — as an independent and self-sustaining organisation, with a one-time grant of ₹25 crore, with the stated aim of making examinations safer and ensuring there would be no leakages or other malpractices.

Over the years, several high-stakes entrance examinations have been entrusted to it. According to the 2024 High Level Committee report and data from the NTA, the agency now conducts examinations spanning undergraduate admissions (JEE-Mains, NEET-UG, CUET, NCET, CMAT, NIFTEE), postgraduate admissions (CUET-PG, GAT-B, AIEEA-PG, GPAT, CMAT, IIFT-MBA), research fellowships and faculty eligibility (UGC-NET across 83 subjects, CSIR-UGC NET, AICE, BET), PhD entrance examinations for universities such as Delhi University, JNU, BHU, and Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University, and recruitment examinations mandated by the Supreme Court, High Courts, and Central government departments, along with scholarship tests for school students including PM Yashasvi Yojana and State Olympiads.

As of March 2026, the NTA had conducted more than 275 examinations involving over 6.61 crore candidates since its inception. A 2025 Parliamentary Committee report, tabled in December, noted the agency had become financially self-sustaining, collecting ₹3,512.98 crore while spending ₹3,064.77 crore, generating a surplus of around ₹448 crore.

But did it achieve its founding aim, to make examinations safer and free from leakages or malpractices? The record suggests otherwise. A body created with the promise of tamper-proof exams has, in eight years, seen paper leaks in NEET-UG, manipulation of JEE-Mains, cancellation of UGC-NET, and a string of controversies in the country’s high-stakes testing system.

Less than two years after the NTA began operations, allegations of a leak in the JEE-Mains examination surfaced. According to media reports, questions from the January 9, 2020, Session-1 paper were allegedly available online during the course of the examination, with the uploaded questions reportedly matching the actual paper. The NTA denied any leak, stating that jammers had been installed at examination centres to prevent such malpractices.

A year after, in 2021, allegations of impersonation and manipulation of the online examination system emerged. Investigations led to the detention of Affinity Education Private Limited, its directors, staff, and associates, as well as a Russian-origin hacker. Authorities alleged that the accused had infiltrated and tampered with the examination software used at a centre in Sonepat, Haryana, solving question papers through remote access on behalf of paying candidates. The CBI arrested the alleged mastermind, Vinay Dahiya, from Gurugram in March 2023.

In the recent development, the Delhi High Court has ordered a forensic probe, initially by the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) and subsequently transferred to the National Cyber Forensic Laboratory (NCFL) — into allegations that JEE (Mains) 2025 scorecards were manipulated. Two candidates alleged that their originally downloaded scorecards, showing percentiles above 94 and 98, were later replaced on the NTA website with sharply lower scores. The NTA has denied the allegations, and investigations into the matter are ongoing. There have also been reports from students regarding mismatched response sheets, including attempted answers not being recorded or being wrongly marked, errors in official answer keys, irregularities in percentile and rank correlations, and technical glitches during examinations, such as system freezes and submission failures (Ref: https://x.com/purnima_lodha/status/1911305369999061122?s=20)

Of all the examinations administered by the NTA, the undergraduate medical entrance test — NEET-UG — has attracted the most controversy. A petition (Saloni vs NTA) to scrap the 2021 test was dismissed by the Supreme Court. The basis of this petition was that CBI registered at least three First information Reports (FIRs) , a cheating operation tied to that year’s NEET-UG. A Nagpur-based education consultancy had allegedly been recruiting stand-in test-takers to sit the exam in place of actual candidates, reportedly demanding as much as ₹50 lakh per student for the service. Comparable irregularities surfaced in Rajasthan and other states as well. Organised cheating rings and impersonation schemes were not entirely new — similar allegations had dogged the medical entrance process even before the NTA took it over. However, the Supreme Court dismissed the petition, and reasoned that “instances of impersonation and leakage of papers cannot be to the detriment of lakhs of students who have attended the examination.”

The 2024 cycle brought a far larger crisis. Over 23 lakh aspirants took NEET-UG that year amid reports that the question paper had been compromised in Bihar. When scores were released, 67 candidates had achieved a flawless 720 out of 720, while a handful of others recorded totals of 718 or 719.

The NTA explained the anomaly as the result of compensatory marks given to students whose testing time had been disrupted. Later, it found evidence of a sophisticated network that had managed to distribute the question paper to students and coaching centres ahead of the exam. The CBI traced the source of the leak to Oasis School in Hazaribagh, Jharkhand, and eventually detained roughly 50 individuals. Those who obtained the paper had allegedly paid between ₹30 lakh and ₹50 lakh, receiving it the day before the test. Although the Supreme Court accepted that a leak had occurred and that an estimated 155 students had been direct beneficiaries, it stopped short of ordering a nationwide re-examination, concluding that the CBI’s investigation had not established a systemic compromise affecting every candidate.

However, 2026 marked a major blow for aspiring medical students. For the first time since NEET came under the NTA’s charge, the examination was cancelled entirely following allegations of a paper leak.

The UGC-NET examination for Junior Research Fellowship (JRF), Assistant Professorship, and PhD admissions across 83 subjects. The June 2024 cycle, conducted in pen-and-paper mode for 6.84 lakh students, was cancelled by the Ministry of Education the very next day, with the ministry stating that “the integrity of the examination may have been compromised.” The matter was referred to the CBI. The cancellation triggered a cascade of precautionary postponements for the other exam like Joint CSIR-UGC-NET.

However, in a significant turn, the CBI in January 2025 filed a closure report before a special court, stating that there was no evidence of a paper leak. The agency’s investigation found that the purported “leaked” question paper circulating on Telegram was a digitally altered screenshot created by a student attempting to profit from the situation. The Union Education Minister termed the irregularities an “institutional failure of the NTA.” The NTA Director General, Subodh Kumar Singh, was removed as well.

While paper leaks have dominated the headlines, the NTA’s record is also reported for administrative and technical issues as well. The first edition of the Common University Entrance Test (CUET-UG) in 2022 was marred by technical glitches at multiple centres. According to a report by The Hindu, on one day alone, the second shift of the exam was cancelled across all 489 centres after question papers could not be uploaded in time. Students in multiple states reported waiting for hours before being turned away. In 2024 and 2025, CUET students reported to continue to face delays and centre-related disruptions.

Published - May 15, 2026 09:42 pm IST

Source: TheHindu
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