The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is set to file its second and final charge sheet in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test-Undergraduate 2026 paper leak case within a week but is unlikely to implicate any official from the central government or the National Testing Agency (NTA), officers familiar with developments said.
Government revamps NTA after paper leak
In recent months, the government announced massive changes in NTA. “The agency will not implicate any government official – including the NTA office bearers – in its concluding charge sheet. The leak was only detected a week after the exam was conducted, triggered massive protests in Parliament and eventually led to the resignation of then Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan after millions of young people — under the Cockroach Janata Party banner — hit the streets. “The NEET paper leak couldn’t have happened without the involvement of NTA and education ministry officials. “The roles of these three individuals, along with the findings of the forensic experts, will be detailed in the concluding charge sheet, which we will file within a week.
On May 12, NTA announced the cancellation of the 2026 NEET test after at least 120 questions in a guess paper – a compilation made by subject experts and teachers of suggested questions, based on previous trends and patterns – were found to be common with the NEET exam paper on May 3. NTA officials are the main culprits and must be punished,” said Shashank Maurya, who appeared in the exam on May 3 and the retest on June 21. 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.
Investigations into the circumstances surrounding the leak didn’t establish anyone else’s role beyond private individuals,” said one of the officers cited above. “With this, our probe into the NEET-UG 2026 paper leak will be complete,” said a second officer. CBI said then that it kept open the probe into the role of “other conspirators” to submit the experts’ opinion reports from the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL), Government Examiner of Questioned Documents (GEQD) and Delhi University experts. A thorough investigation was conducted to ascertain whether any NTA official or other government official was involved in the leak, but no such involvement was found,” said a second officer.
