Opposition Congress lawmaker and Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth, and Sports chairman Digvijaya Singh has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking a white paper on paper leaks and examination irregularities in National Testing Agency (NTA)-conducted exams over the last eight years. He said this would inspire renewed confidence in the administration’s ability and willingness to deliver justice to India’s students.
Singh said the absence of a consolidated public record on paper leaks and the action taken was a key concern among students following the cancellation of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test-Undergraduate) NEET-UG 2026 last month. He blamed the information vacuum for rumours and speculation over it.
The NTA cancelled NEET-UG 2026 on May 12, nine days after 2.27 million students sat for the examination across 551 cities. The move came after central agencies confirmed that the question paper had been compromised. Questions were available on the phones of some as early as May 1, two days before the exam. It was the second time in two years that NEET-UG came under a cloud, prompting the NTA to hand the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and schedule a retest for June 21.
Singh said the white paper should include the actions taken by NTA and investigative agencies in each case, the names and status of those arrested, the progress of investigations, whether charge sheets or closure reports have been filed, and the reasons for filing any closure reports.
He said it should also detail whether the accused persons are facing trial, or are out on bail, convicted, or otherwise. Singh called for reinforcing faith in the system when tens of thousands of students are under heavy pressure. “Such transparency will act as a confidence-building measure among our youth,” Singh wrote in a letter dated June 4 (Thursday).
Singh said students had approached him in recent weeks, expressing concerns about the lack of clarity surrounding investigations into examination irregularities and paper leak cases.
The NTA was set up in May 2018 as an autonomous “premier testing organisation.” It has spent much of its existence firefighting.
HT on May 13 reported how NTA’s troubles predate the current crisis. Technical glitches, language errors in question papers, dropped questions in final answer keys, and exam-centre allocation issues dogged the NTA between 2018 and 2023. Since 2024, the problems have grown more serious.
Discrepancies, irregularities, and alleged malpractices marred the NEET-UG 2024. It was followed by the leak-linked cancellation and re-conduct of UGC-NET in June and August-September 2024, NTA’s first full re-examination after an integrity breach, signalling a deepening institutional failure.
A parliamentary panel on education (December 2025) found that at least five of the 14 competitive examinations NTA conducted in 2024 and early 2025 faced “major issues.” UGC-NET, CSIR-NET, and NEET-PG (though not conducted by NTA) had to be postponed. In January 2025, at least 12 questions in JEE Main had to be withdrawn after errors were found in the final answer key.
Singh referred to past controversies and said students had repeatedly raised concerns that Sanjeev Kumar, alias Mukhiya, accused in the 2024 NEET-UG paper leak case in Jharkhand’s Hazaribagh, was reportedly out on bail. He cited reports that the CBI filed a closure report in the 2024 UGC-NET case. Singh noted that the agency had sought additional time when asked by a Delhi court to provide a written explanation for its findings.
