CBI Flags NEET-UG 2026 Lapses At NTA, Recommends Security Reforms

The Central Bureau of Investigation has flagged procedural lapses in how NEET-UG 2026 question papers were prepared at the National Testing Agency and recommended systemic reforms to prevent future leaks. The report, submitted late last month to the Union education ministry, is part of the probe into the paper leak linked to the May 3 undergraduate medical entrance exam, people familiar with the matter said on Monday. It is the CBI’s assessment report, sent to the ministry, and it mainly recommends systemic reforms and corrective measures modelled on transparency and security protocols.

The agency has not found any criminality by any government officer posted at the NTA so far. In its main chargesheet filed on July 28 against 13 people, the CBI named three external subject experts — retired chemistry professor P V Kulkarni, botany teacher Manisha Mandhare and physics teacher Manisha Havaldar — as the source of the leak. A supplementary chargesheet filed on Wednesday also names no NTA official.

The CBI began investigating alleged irregularities and the paper leak after a complaint from the Union education ministry on May 12. The exam triggered nationwide protests. “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,” an officer, said as per The Hindustan Times.

Question-Setting Lapses

The report says experts had access to the final sets of questions, including the three experts named in the chargesheet. According to the officer quoted above, the CBI said there should have been tighter controls.

“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.

“Then a different set of subject experts called as vetters solved the question sets finalised by moderators. Then, the finalised question sets were translated into vernacular languages by subject experts. 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 said.

Some experts worked across more than one stage, the officer said. “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 said.

CCTV And Security Gaps

The CBI also flagged surveillance and physical security gaps at the NTA office in the NSIC building in Delhi’s Okhla, where confidential work linked to the papers was carried out, a second officer said. The NTA has since shifted to a new office on Minto Road.

The office kept CCTV backups for only 20-25 days, the officer said. That limited the agency’s ability to reconstruct the sequence of the leak because confidential work on the papers ended on April 7 and the investigation began on May 12.

“All the confidential work related to papers was completed on April 7 while the investigations started on May 12. By then, the relevant footage was not available. 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. 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,” the officer said according to The Hindustan Times.

The CBI also found that experts involved in paper-setting and translation were given blank sheets inside the confidential section for rough work. Kulkarni used these to note down, as small chits, all 135 chemistry questions and the answer options, according to the CBI.

Security checks were missing too. “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 said.

Probe Timeline And Reforms

The leak probe began after the Union education ministry complained to the CBI on May 12 about alleged irregularities and the paper leak in the May 3 NEET-UG 2026 exam. The exam led to protests across the country. As part of its mandate, the agency is also required to suggest policy or procedural changes that can plug loopholes enabling fraud, corruption or other criminal activity.

A wider overhaul at the NTA is already under way. The Union education ministry on August 17 removed 50 NTA staff. The NTA later said its examination team had been revamped, 600 subject experts had been removed and new experts brought in, and a four-tier question-paper scrutiny system had been introduced.

The Centre has also set up a six-member high-powered task force led by Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani. The panel has been asked to recommend technological interventions and structural reforms for the NTA.