Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, May 13: A petition was filed in the Supreme Court on Wednesday seeking a direction to the Centre to “replace or fundamentally restructure” the National Testing Agency (NTA) following the cancellation on Tuesday of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test, Under Graduate (NEET-UG) exam for medical admissions in 2026 in colleges across the country.
Filling the petition, the Federation of All India Medical Association (FAIMA) pressed for the need for a “more robust, technologically advanced and autonomous body for conducting NEET.”
The NTA, which conduct the NEET cancelled the exam conducted on May 3 due to alleged leak of the question paper and announced a re-test at a later date. Over 22 lakh students had appeared in the national exam. A Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) investigation has been ordered into the leak.
The FAIMA said the court should intervene directly and appoint a high-powered monitoring committee chaired by a retired apex court judge and with members including a cyber-security expert and a forensic scientist to supervise the re-conduct of the exam and ensure there were no further leaks.
“Direct the re-conduct of the NEET-UG 2026 under the strict scrutiny of a judicially appointed high-powered committee until an interim oversight committee constituted by the apex court has verified and certified the security of the revised examination process,” the petition sought.
The plea, filed by advocate Tanvi Dubey, urged a direction to the government to mandate the “digital locking” of question papers and a transition to a computer-based test (CBT) model, as suggested in the aftermath of previous leaks, to eliminate the physical chain-of-custody risks.
FAIMA further asked for a direction to the CBI to file an investigation report before the apex court in four weeks. The report, the petition, must have details of the networks operating behind the leak; arrests made; persons charged; and the progress of the prosecution. The petition said the NTA must forthwith publish the centre-wise results of the NEET-UG 2026 to allow transparent detection of abnormalities.
Meanwhile, the details emerged of the move behind the paper leak point out that the scandal began in Maharashtra’s Nashik, where the first digital copy of the paper surfaced. According to reports, Shubham Khairnar, a resident of Nashik, was detained by the CBI for allegedly purchasing the leaked paper from a Pune-based suspect and later selling it at a profit margin of Rs 5 lakh. After Maharashtra, the leaked paper reportedly spread to several states, including Haryana’s Gurugram, Rajasthan’s Jaipur and Sikar – a major coaching hub – as well as Jammu and Kashmir, Bihar and Kerala.
Shubham Khairnar, a 30-year-old resident of the Indiranagar locality in Nashik, is a Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery (BAMS) student. He allegedly bought the leaked NEET UG paper from a Pune-based suspect for Rs 10 lakh and sold it to a buyer in Haryana for Rs 15 lakh, earning a profit of Rs 5 lakh. Reports said the paper was circulated through an encrypted messaging application.
Shubham was detained by the CBI on Tuesday afternoon while reportedly travelling to a temple for prayers. Investigators said he had changed his appearance by cutting his hair in an attempt to evade detection. However, officials allegedly identified him by comparing his current appearance with older photographs and using technical surveillance data.
After the Local Crime Branch (LCB) took him into custody, his father, Madhukar Khairnar, termed the allegations against his son as baseless. According to him, Shubham had no connection with the paper leak racket. However, he also said if his son’s name had surfaced in the investigation, a fair and thorough probe should be conducted to establish the truth. Reports further claimed that the paper leak involved sophisticated technology, including portable scanners, a complex Telegram network and shadow servers.
According to reports, the paper was being circulated nearly 45 hours before the examination. The matter first came to light when a student from Sikar studying in Kerala allegedly sent a PDF of a “guess paper” to his father, who runs a PG accommodation facility in Sikar.
The father reportedly tried to share the paper with girls staying at the hostel on the morning of the examination, but they had already left for their centres. After the exam concluded, the paper was shown to Chemistry and Biology teachers, who allegedly found that 45 out of 108 Chemistry questions and 90 out of 204 Biology questions matched the actual exam paper.
Sources claimed that some coaching institutes in Sikar asked select students to prepare for NEET using these so-called “guess papers.” While some aspirants received PDF copies, others were reportedly given physical copies of the leaked paper.
The teachers initially attempted to file a complaint, but the Sikar police allegedly refused to register it. They later emailed the NTA, which reportedly informed the Intelligence Bureau (IB). The IB then directed Rajasthan’s Special Operations Group (SOG) to investigate the matter.
On May 8, the SOG reportedly identified individuals in Sikar who had purchased the paper from Jaipur and later traced the network to Haryana and Nashik. Rajasthan’s SOG has so far arrested 15 people in connection with the case, including alleged mastermind Manish Yadav and Rakesh Mandwaria.
