Dharmendra Pradhan admits NEET UG breach, says ministry will rectify it, NTA to hold re examination on June 21, earlier exam cancelled after confirmed paper leak
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said that the ministry takes “responsibility for rectifying” the NEET paper leak. (Source: PTI)
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Friday accepted that there has been a breach in the NEET-UG examination and said that the ministry takes “responsibility for rectifying it”.
The minister was addressing a press conference hours after the National Testing Agency (NTA) announced that the re-examination of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test Undergraduate, NEET (UG) 2026, will now be conducted on June 21.
Speaking on the fresh dates for examination, Pradhan said, “The new dates of the re-examination have been declared for June 21st.”
Also Read: No OMR Sheets, NEET To Be Held Online From Next Year, Says Dharmendra Pradhan After Paper Leak
Speaking about the NEET exam paper leak controversy, which has rocked the entire nation, the minister said, “The exam took place on 3rd May and on 7th May, NTA received a complaint that the guess paper had some questions that were present in the Question sheets this time. The Higher Education Department initiated an immediate inquiry and handed it over to the government agency… They contacted the state agencies and by May 12th, we were confirmed that, under the guise of a guess paper, the actual examination questions had indeed been leaked…”
“We did not want any deserving student to be deprived of their rights due to the machinations of fraudulent candidates or the conspiracies of the education mafia… After the irregularities that surfaced last time, the Radhakrishnan Committee had been constituted, and we implemented its recommendations word for word for both 2025 and 2026. Despite that, this incident occurred. Hence, our first decision was to cancel the examination,” the minister said.
‘Zero Tolerance Against Exam Mafias’
The minister further said that the government has zero tolerance for exam mafias and that the CBI, which is investigating the case, will go to the depths of the breach.
Also Read: NEET UG 2026 Re-Exam On June 21: NTA Announces Fresh Date After Row Over Paper Leak
“We have zero tolerance towards malpractices and this is a long fight against the examination mafia… Various social media handles are trying to spread misinformation, the system is being challenged and in view of this, the investigation has been handed over to the CBI, who have initiated immediate action. It will go to the depths of the breach,” the minister said.
“We will not let malpractices happen this time… We are all very sad and worried about the candidates, but we had to take this difficult decision in the interest of the nation,” he added.
‘We Accept Breach Has Happened’
Minister Pradhan said that the ministry accepts that a breach has taken place and it will take full responsibility for rectifying it.
“We accept that a breach has happened. We take responsibility for rectifying it,” the minister said.
“The NTA is in the hands of an able person… It has been formed with the recommendation of the Supreme Court and conducts examination of nearly 1 crore students each year… We will ensure 0 errors in the NTA,” Pradhan added.
‘NEET To Be Held Online From Next Year’
The minister announced that the NEET UG exam will move to online mode from the next academic year, a step taken to avoid any paper leaks in the future.
“One important point I wanted to mention is that from next year, the root issue will be addressed. The NEET examination will be conducted as a computer-based test instead of (on) OMR sheets,” he said.
The NTA had cancelled the earlier NEET-UG 2026 examination, which took place on May 3, amid paper leak controversy.
The controversy erupted after investigators discovered that a so-called “guess paper” circulating before the exam allegedly matched a large number of questions from the actual NEET paper. Reports suggested that nearly 120 to 140 questions overlapped with the final exam paper.
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