As part of its probe into the NEET-UG 2026 paper leak case, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has submitted a report pointing out procedural lapses in exam preparation at the National Testing Agency (NTA) , including subject experts having access to the final set of question papers and shortcomings in CCTV coverage at the agency’s office.
It has named three external subject experts –retired chemistry professor P V Kulkarni, botany teacher Manisha Mandhare, and a physics teacher Manisha Havaldar—as the source of the leak in the main charge sheet against 13 individuals filed on July 28. “In the process of setting questions for NEET-UG 2026, there is an item writing stage for every subject for which experts were called to prepare questions and their answer options. In the next step, some experts are called to work as moderators who select the questions for 4 sets to be prepared for NTA,” the officer said. The Union education ministry on August 17 removed 50 NTA staff. NTA subsequently said its examination team was revamped, with 600 subject experts removed and new experts brought in, besides the introduction of a four-tier question-paper scrutiny system.
In the final step, the translated versions were back translated to English by subject experts to verify the accuracy of the translation and to ensure that no context is lost in translation,” the officer explained. Its assessment report, sent to the Union ministry of education , mainly recommends systemic reforms and corrective measures modeled on transparency and security protocols. To be sure, the premier anti-corruption agency has not found any criminality on the part of any government officer posted in NTA. “Then a different set of subject experts called as vetters solved the question sets finalized by moderators. Then, the finalised question sets were translated into vernacular languages by subject experts. Some experts were involved in more than one stage, the officer pointed out. The report comes amid a wider overhaul of the examination agency. The Centre has also set up a six-member high-powered task force headed by Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani to recommend technological interventions and structural reforms for NTA.
“After completing our investigations in the NEET-UG 2026 paper leak, we have sent a detailed report to the Centre outlining procedural lapses in the exam process and recommending systematic changes,” said an officer, requesting anonymity. CBI in its report said that experts, including the three named in the chargesheet, had access to the final sets of questions, according to this officer. “Ideally, different experts should have been assigned for every stage, and access to the final set of question sets by individual experts should have been restricted,” he pointed out.
In its report submitted late last month, CBI has also recommended measures to prevent such leaks in future, people familiar with the matter said on Monday. A supplementary charge sheet filed on Wednesday too does not name any NTA official.
Short CCTV backup period hampered leak investigation
The CBI started its investigation into alleged irregularities and paper leak in the May 3 National Eligibility cum Entrance Test examination for undergraduate medical courses, which triggered nationwide protests, following a complaint by the Union education ministry on May 12. The office had CCTV footage backups of only 20-25 days, which limited CBI’s ability to recreate the sequence of events of the leak, the officer said. “All the confidential work related to papers was completed on April 7 while the investigations started on May 12. Kulkarni used these to note down, as small chits, all 135 chemistry questions and the answer options, according to the CBI.
CBI, based on its investigations, is mandated to recommend policy or procedural changes to the government to plug loopholes that enable fraud, corruption or other criminal activities. NTA has since shifted to a new office on Minto Road. By then, the relevant footage was not available. CBI also found that experts involved in the setting of paper and translation were provided blank sheets inside the confidential section for rough work. “There were no frisking or metal-detector checks when experts entered or exited the confidential section of NTA. We have highlighted these shortcomings in our report,” the officer added.
The NTA also didn’t have a dedicated CCTV live feed monitoring control room due to which the activities of experts in the confidential hall went unnoticed.
CBI has also flagged shortcomings in the CCTV surveillance at the NTA office at the NSIC building in Delhi’s Okhla , where confidential work related to the exam papers was conducted, a second officer said. We have conveyed that there should be complete CCTV coverage of NTA in every area and back-up should be maintained for the entire period,” this officer said.
