The National Testing Agency has canceled the NEET-UG 2026 exam conducted on May 3 after evidence of a paper leak surfaced. He will conduct a re-test later, he said on Tuesday.
The NTA is expected to announce the new retest schedule in seven to ten days. NTA CEO Abhishek Singh said it would be held in the “minimum possible time”, without commenting on specific dates. No new registration will be required and no retest fee will be charged; in fact, the NTA has promised to refund the fees already paid.
Also Read: NEET UG 2026 cancellation LIVE update
Nearly 22 thousand students appeared for this year’s National Entrance cum Eligibility Test Undergraduate (NEET-UG), which is an entrance exam for admission to undergraduate medical programs across the country. Four days after the exam was held, a whistleblower’s report led investigators to a “guess paper” that contained significant overlap of questions with the actual question paper. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered a case to investigate the allegations.
“Sending a signal to cheaters”
The NTA concluded that the current exam was compromised, Mr. Singh told The Hindu. “Any move before the exams are canceled would signal that those trying to beat the system, cheat the system, would succeed,” he explained.
Further to its press release dated 10th May 2026, the National Testing Agency wishes to inform candidates, parents and the public of the following decisions taken in connection with NEET (UG) 2026. The NTA on 8th May 2026 referred the matters then under consideration to…
— National Testing Agency (@NTA_Exams) May 12, 2026
“Based on inputs subsequently reviewed by NTA in coordination with central authorities and findings of investigation shared by law enforcement agencies and with a view to ensuring transparency of the system, NTA with the approval of the Government of India has decided to cancel the NEET (UG) 2026 examination conducted on 3 May 2026,” it said, adding that the re-examination will be notified by NTA on dates to be notified by NTA separately.
He added that while a retest would cause significant inconvenience to candidates and their families, “the alternative would cause greater and more lasting damage” to public trust.
Zero error policy
“We have assured students and parents that it will be a zero error exam,” Mr. Singh told The Hindu. “The issue is not whether the leak was located or not, the point is that if the integrity of the process has been breached, it has been compromised. I am not prejudicing a CBI investigation. However, we will conduct a re-examination in the shortest possible time and ensure that nothing like this happens again,” he said, adding that new exam dates and re-issuance dates would be announced through official NTA channels.
When Mr. Singh, who earlier headed India’s AI mission, took charge of the NTA forty days ago, he announced a “zero-error, zero-tolerance” policy to conduct entry tests.
“In fact, we did a complete revision before conducting the NEET exam on May 3 and there were no complaints at that time. We mentioned that there will be a ‘zero error zero tolerance’ policy and therefore blocked 120 Telegram channels. We urged the students not to fall prey to any people trying to cheat them,” the NTA DG added.
CBI probes leak
The NTA received the whistleblower’s report on 7 May. “We verified the PDF in circulation and found part of the allegations to be true, that similar questions appeared in the estimate. This violated our commitment (of zero errors),” explained Mr. Singh. “Inputs received by the NTA, together with findings shared by law enforcement agencies, have demonstrated that the current vetting process cannot stand,” he said.
“The exact location where the leak took place will be released only after the CBI investigation is completed. We have complete footage of up to 1,50,000 CCTVs in the vaults on the day of the exam and after the exam,” Mr. Singh said. “However, a whistleblower’s complaint on May 7 led us to investigate a handwritten slip that was digitally circulating on newsgroups that matched the NEET main test.”
CBT would be a ‘massive task’
The NEET UG 2026 exam, which is now invalid, was conducted at 5,432 centers on May 3 in a paper and pen format using an OMR-based answer sheet.
Asked whether the NTA would consider holding computer-based tests (CBT) instead, given that the exam had earlier leaked even in 2024, Mr. Singh said it was a decision of the Union Education Ministry itself. “It’s a big political challenge because nearly 22 million doctors are appearing for the exams and we have the capacity to conduct CBT tests for only 1.5 million students on any given day. That would mean conducting the exams for several days, say 22 days, introducing different question papers and then normalizing the scores across different question paper variants. It’s a huge task,” Mr Singh added.
We will review the recommendations of the expert committee that suggested reform measures after the NEET 2024 controversy and look at what went wrong, he added.
‘Fees will be refunded’
In its statement, the NTA also said that the registration details, candidature and examination centers selected in the May 2026 cycle will be carried over to the re-test. “No fresh registration will be required and no additional examination fee will be charged. Moreover, the fees already paid will be refunded to the students and the examination will be re-conducted using NTA’s internal resources,” the statement said.
“I share the anguish and pain that students and parents feel. I take responsibility and we assure students that they don’t have to pay for the resit. We are committed to creating a system that is reliable, but if I say anything at this point, it will ring hollow. We have to keep talking. It’s a big disappointment for the whole team,” Mr. Sh said further, but we are doing it.
Published – May 12, 2026 12:31 PM IST
