The agency’s probe has established the alleged role of 13 people, including NTA-appointed subject experts, coaching centre operators, middlemen and candidates.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is set to file its second and final charge sheet in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test-Undergraduate 2026 paper leak case within a week but is unlikely to implicate any official from the central government or the National Testing Agency (NTA), officers familiar with developments said.
Probe establishes role of only 13 individuals
The CBI probe has only been able to establish the role of 13 individuals — including NTA-appointed subject experts, coaching centre operators, middlemen and candidates — raising questions about the investigation into a leak that affected the future of millions of students and triggered the largest street protests in years.
“The agency will not implicate any government official – including the NTA office bearers – in its concluding charge sheet. Investigations into the circumstances surrounding the leak didn’t establish anyone else’s role beyond private individuals,” said one of the officers cited above.
“With this, our probe into the NEET-UG 2026 paper leak will be complete,” said a second officer.
NEET cancellation followed detection of common questions
On May 12, NTA announced the cancellation of the 2026 NEET test after at least 120 questions in a guess paper – a compilation made by subject experts and teachers of suggested questions, based on previous trends and patterns – were found to be common with the NEET exam paper on May 3. The leak was only detected a week after the exam was conducted, triggered massive protests in Parliament and eventually led to the resignation of then Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan after millions of young people — under the Cockroach Janata Party banner — hit the streets.
“The NEET paper leak couldn’t have happened without the involvement of NTA and education ministry officials. NTA officials are the main culprits and must be punished,” said Shashank Maurya, who appeared in the exam on May 3 and the retest on June 21.
First charge sheet named 13 accused
The first charge sheet in the paper leak was filed on July 28, naming 13 accused persons including three NTA-appointed subject experts – Manisha Gurunath Mandhare for Botany and Zoology, Prahlad Vithalrao Kulkarni for Chemistry, and Manisha Sanjay Havaldar for Physics – among others.
CBI said then that it kept open the probe into the role of “other conspirators” to submit the experts’ opinion reports from the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL), Government Examiner of Questioned Documents (GEQD) and Delhi University experts.
The agency has since arrested three more individuals who were alleged beneficiaries of paper leaks through coaching centres.
“The roles of these three individuals, along with the findings of the forensic experts, will be detailed in the concluding charge sheet, which we will file within a week. A thorough investigation was conducted to ascertain whether any NTA official or other government official was involved in the leak, but no such involvement was found,” said a second officer.
Government revamps NTA after paper leak
In recent months, the government announced massive changes in NTA. The Union education ministry on August 17 removed 50 NTA staff. NTA subsequently said its examination team was revamped, with 600 subject experts removed and new experts brought in, besides the introduction of a four-tier question-paper scrutiny system.
According to CBI’s first charge sheet, NTA reused the same three subject experts across multiple stages of preparing NEET-UG 2026’s question paper – one of them across all four stages, from item-writing to back-translation – and allowed them to see all four of the exam’s master question sets during the final stage. This essentially meant that the experts were given access to all four final master question sets, providing prolonged, continuous exposure to highly sensitive material.
Kulkarni, according to CBI, transcribed 135 Chemistry questions, along with answer options, onto small pieces of paper and took them out of the confidential area. Mandhare and Havaldar allegedly memorised questions and their parameters and later reconstructed them with the help of textbooks.
