This was not supposed to happen again.

After the NEET 2024 debacle — when question papers were physically stolen from a strongroom in Hazaribagh and solved in a rented room in Patna — the government had assembled a seven-member expert committee under former ISRO chairman K. Radhakrishnan. It produced a detailed reform agenda: encrypted paper delivery, AI-based surveillance, biometric authentication, background checks for paper setters, and a shift to computer-based testing. The Supreme Court closed the matter in April 2025 after the Centre promised to implement all of it.

Fourteen months later, the same exam — with many of those reforms officially in place — was cancelled again. This time, the breach did not happen at a strongroom or a transport chain. It happened much earlier, and much deeper inside.

The Leak That Came from Within

PV Kulkarni is 60-something, retired, and not exactly a household name. He spent 28 years as a Chemistry professor at Dayanand College in Latur, Maharashtra, eventually becoming its principal before hanging up his chalk around four years ago. After retirement, he freelanced at coaching institutes in Pune — not unusual for someone of his calibre. What was unusual was his second career: a contractual appointment with the NTA as a Chemistry subject expert.

Mandhare, who worked at Pune's Modern College, allegedly ran her own operation separately but in parallel. Starting in April 2026, she conducted special coaching sessions at her residence where she dictated specific Botany and Zoology questions to select students, instructing them to note answers in notebooks and mark them in textbooks. When investigators raided her home, the handwritten notes matched the actual exam paper.

These were not street-level middlemen or desperate candidates. They were credentialed academics who had earned NTA's trust — and exploited it.

A third arrest, on May 18, brought in Shivaraj Motegaonkar, owner of the Renukai Chemistry Classes coaching institute in Latur. Investigators found that this same racket had also compromised NEET UG 2025 — meaning the network had been operational for at least two exam cycles before anyone caught it.

How the Chain of Custody Actually Works — and Where It Broke

The NTA operates with formal protocols around paper-setting. Experts are recruited under strict conditions: secure, internet-free rooms, no phones, no laptops. Papers are set in isolation, reviewed, translated, and encrypted before transportation. On paper, it is a controlled process with multiple checkpoints.

The problem is the human factor inside those checkpoints. The translators — who convert papers into regional languages including Marathi, Tamil, and Telugu — see the same content as paper setters. The NTA's own internal investigation, triggered by the Sikar whistleblower's email, found that all Chemistry questions were compromised. The agency then shared a list of approximately 26–27 individuals with the CBI for investigation, comprising paper setters, translators, and others involved in the Chemistry paper process. Officials suspect some of them may have been involved in previous exam cycles too.

The Education Minister acknowledged this directly. At a press conference on May 15, Dharmendra Pradhan said there had been a "breach in the command chain" despite the Radhakrishnan committee's reforms being implemented. He accepted government responsibility — and pointed to the OMR system as the structural culprit. What he did not say, though it was implied: the reforms fixed the delivery chain, not the source.

A Timeline of a Scandal in Slow Motion

What the Reforms Actually Fixed — and What They Didn't

It is worth being precise here, because "reforms were implemented but failed" is doing a lot of rhetorical work that the facts don't entirely support.

The Radhakrishnan committee's recommendations were substantial. They called for biometric verification of candidates, encrypted paper delivery, AI surveillance at exam centres, stronger centre allocation systems, and a shift to CBT. The Centre accepted most of them. Physical security around transportation and exam centres was significantly upgraded. Encryption protocols were strengthened. AI-based anomaly detection systems were deployed — though officials privately acknowledged these were still "at a nascent stage."

The one recommendation the Centre explicitly declined, as Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the Supreme Court in April 2025, was the move to CBT. Pradhan cited cost, infrastructure readiness, and concerns about digital equity in rural areas. These are not frivolous objections. But the leak in 2026 originated not in transportation or examination centres — it originated in the paper-setting process, where CBT would have had limited direct impact anyway.

The process also remained vulnerable due to multiple human handling points in the chain, creating opportunities for breaches. The deployment of advanced AI-based surveillance systems to detect anomalies was still nascent. And critically, background verification and third-party due diligence for paper setters and translators — a gap that the Outlook investigation flagged — had not been institutionalised with the same rigour as physical security measures.

The NTA's Structural Problem No One Wants to Name

Three students died by suicide in the weeks after the cancellation was announced. The human cost here is not abstract.

But the structural problem is also real: the NTA has been conducting one of the world's largest single-day examinations — 2.27 crore students, 5,400 centres, hundreds of cities — with an institutional design that has not kept pace with the exam's scale or the sophistication of those trying to game it.

The agency relies on contractual experts, many drawn from the same academic networks as coaching institutes. In some cases, as the 2026 investigation revealed, the same individuals who set NEET questions also maintain affiliations with coaching businesses. The conflict of interest was not incidental — it was structural.

The Supreme Court put it plainly during the May 2026 hearings: either the Radhakrishnan recommendations were flawed, or effective monitoring had not taken place. It is probably both. A committee formed after one type of failure will naturally optimise its recommendations around that failure. The 2026 breach required a different diagnosis — one that the 2024 committee, formed before 2026's pattern was visible, could not have fully anticipated.

What Happens Next: The CBT Bet

Pradhan's announcement that NEET will go online from 2027 is significant — but it needs scrutiny, not celebration.

Computer-based tests like JEE allow for question randomisation, which makes large-scale leaks harder because each candidate can get a different set. Secure delivery, real-time monitoring, and tamper-evident systems are all more tractable in a digital format. These are real advantages.

Critics have a point too, though. If the leak originates in the paper-setting process itself — when the question bank is still being assembled — then it does not matter how secure the delivery is. A CBT system with compromised setters is not safer than a pen-and-paper exam with vetted ones.

The more fundamental reform — which petitioners before the Supreme Court are pushing for — is replacing the NTA itself with a more autonomous, independently governed body created by an Act of Parliament, with its own dedicated technology, security, and vetting divisions. The UPSC comparison keeps coming up: India's civil services exam, conducted for decades, does not produce scandals at this scale. The difference is institutional credibility built over time — not just better technology.

The Re-Exam and What Students Are Facing

For the 2.27 crore students who wrote NEET on May 3, the cancellation is not a policy question. It is their lives, rescheduled. Medical aspirants in India often spend two to three years — sometimes more — preparing for a single exam. Their families plan around it. Admissions counselling timelines run tight. A two-month delay ripples into everything.

The re-examination is scheduled for June 21 at over 5,400 centres across 550 cities. Admit cards are expected by June 14. Pradhan also announced 15 additional minutes of examination time, acknowledging that the earlier OMR formalities had unnecessarily consumed student time. Fee refunds have been extended.

The Supreme Court has noted what "a bench led by Justice PS Narasimha" articulated: "It's actually very traumatic if something like this happens — not just for the students but also their families and everybody." The court has made clear it will not disappoint young aspirants again, and is monitoring the matter closely into July.

Students and opposition leaders — from Rahul Gandhi to actor-politician Vijay — have called the repeated leaks a systemic indictment. "A crime against the youth's future," Gandhi said, comparing the situation to the exam being put up for auction. The political pressure is real, even if the solutions being debated are more complicated than the rhetoric.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why was NEET UG 2026 cancelled?

NEET UG 2026, held on May 3, was cancelled on May 12 after a whistleblower in Sikar, Rajasthan showed that a circulating guess paper matched up to 120 actual exam questions — including a near-complete Chemistry match. CBI confirmed the leak had NTA-insider origins.

Who is PV Kulkarni and how was he connected to the leak?

PV Kulkarni is a retired Chemistry professor from Latur, Maharashtra, who joined the NTA on contract as a Chemistry subject expert. Investigators allege he used direct access to the NEET 2026 Chemistry paper to create and circulate a PDF through a coaching racket spanning Maharashtra and Rajasthan.

What is the NEET 2026 re-exam date?

The NEET UG 2026 re-examination is scheduled for June 21, 2026. Over 5,400 centres across 550 cities will host the exam. Admit cards are expected by June 14.

Will NEET go fully online from 2027?

Yes. Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan confirmed that NEET UG will shift to a Computer-Based Test (CBT) format from 2027. The OMR system was cited as the root structural vulnerability — and CBT was the one Radhakrishnan committee recommendation the government had not previously adopted.

Why did the Radhakrishnan committee reforms fail to prevent the 2026 leak?

The 2024 reforms were optimised for the 2024 failure mode — physical theft at transit and exam centres. The 2026 breach happened at an earlier point: inside the paper-setting process, where contracted NTA experts with direct question access leaked it to coaching networks. No physical security upgrade addresses a vetted insider threat.

How many people have been arrested in the NEET 2026 case?

As of late May 2026, the CBI has made at least 13 arrests across Delhi, Gurugram, Jaipur, Pune, Latur, Nashik, and other cities. The probe is active and more arrests are expected as the agency examines electronic evidence and interrogates those already in custody.