At 4.15am, the lights were already on in Manish Kumar’s house in Nalanda. His mother moved quietly between the kitchen and the courtyard, packing parathas in foil. His father sat with a diary open, recalculating expenses one more time—coaching fees, travel, rent in Kota, the cost of books that lay stacked like a promise and a burden. Manish, 18, revised organic chemistry reactions under a dim tubelight, whispering formulas to himself. By 5am, he was on his way to the examination centre.
By evening, his phone began to buzz. “Paper leak,” one message read. He ignored it. Rumours are routine in India’s exam culture. But by night, the whispers had hardened into headlines, and by the next morning, the familiar cycle had returned: investigations, arrests, allegations and an unsettling sense of deja vu.
What has unfolded in the latest National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) controversy—the exam, held on May 3, was cancelled because of a paper leak—is not an aberration but a pattern.
The details of how such leaks unfold are not conjecture, but drawn from the 2024 NEET paper leak investigations. Those findings serve as a reference point to understand the current controversy. In that case, investigators identified Rajasthan, particularly Jaipur, as a critical node in the network.
They also pointed to the simplicity of the crime—there are hardly any tools used. The culprits would access the strong room, open the sealed envelope just enough to extract the contents, photograph the question paper and then reseal it with minimal trace. From there, the process moved quickly and efficiently. Question solvers, positioned in advance, worked through the paper, and answers were circulated to those who had paid—sometimes more than Rs20 lakh (in 2024). And then, as abruptly as it began, the transaction chain would close, leaving little trace beyond encrypted chats and fragments of digital evidence.
A senior police officer involved in the 2024 investigation told THE WEEK: “It was not a last-minute breach but a premeditated operation with defined roles, from insiders to solvers to couriers. The system was compromised at multiple points, not just at the examination centre.”
Rajasthan, in many ways, has become emblematic of this crisis. Law enforcement officers have repeatedly spoken of touts who operate as connectors between organised gangs and aspirants willing to pay. They move across states, exploiting systemic weaknesses wherever they exist.
The 2026 case, now under CBI investigation, appears to differ in scale and spread. Official sources say the agency has arrested at least 10 accused across multiple states, pointing to a wider operation.
Unlike the 2024 case, where the state police led the investigation, the current case spans multiple jurisdictions, involves digital evidence trails and cuts across institutional layers, making coordination by a central agency critical.
But, what is perhaps more troubling is the time it takes for the system to admit that something has gone wrong. In several instances, whistleblowers reportedly approached authorities early, attempting to flag irregularities, but there was no action. The hesitation is not accidental. Acknowledging a leak triggers a cascade of consequences—it raises questions about accountability, about institutional failure, about whether the system is capable of safeguarding aspirations. And so, denial becomes the first response, followed by delay, and only then, reluctant acceptance. By that time, evidence has thinned, networks have adapted and the narrative has already fractured.
At the centre of this storm stands the National Testing Agency, the body responsible for conducting NEET. The examination process involves multiple stages—paper setting, moderation, printing, storage, transportation and distribution. Each stage has human intervention, and each creates a point of vulnerability. And yet, much of the security focus remains on the last mile—deploying police at centres, sealing envelopes and monitoring entry points. But as recent events have shown, by the time the paper reaches the centre, the breach might already have occurred.
This brings into focus the fault line between state authorities and the NTA. While the security of examination centres and local enforcement falls under state governments, the overall conduct of the exam rests with the NTA. The current crisis sits at this intersection, where accountability is diffused and responsibility often contested.
As cybersecurity expert Mukul Kumar, managing partner at Claracon AI, puts it, “The NEET paper leak is not merely an examination failure, it is a systemic failure, and that distinction is critical if we are serious about fixing it. The question is not whether vulnerabilities exist, but whether anyone is actively monitoring them.” He says high-stakes exams must be treated like classified systems, with strict chain-of-custody protocols and real-time anomaly detection.
In response to mounting criticism, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan reiterated the government’s commitment to reform, signalling a shift towards computer-based testing (CBT) from next year. Digitisation reduces physical handling, eliminates the need to transport papers and introduces the possibility of encryption and controlled access. It is an attempt to redesign the system from the ground up.
But the transition is not without risks. A digital system does not eliminate vulnerabilities; it redistributes them. Servers, networks and local hardware become new points of potential failure. In a country where infrastructure remains uneven, where reliable electricity and stable internet cannot be guaranteed across all centres, the move to CBT raises difficult questions.
Some educators argue that the written paper, for all its flaws, remains a more grounded form of assessment. Others propose a two-step system—objective questions followed by subjective evaluation to test not just memory but understanding. Still others suggest introducing multiple sets of question papers, distributed randomly across centres, to reduce predictability and disrupt the leak economy. Send boxes labelled A, B and C, they argue, and open them randomly just before the exam begins. It is a simple idea, but one that acknowledges a fundamental truth: predictability is the leak’s greatest ally.
Sunitha Nambiar, CEO of Kedman Global India and Manav Rachna International Schools, underlines the emotional cost of this uncertainty. “Incidents like these have a profound impact on students, especially at a stage when expectations, pressure and vulnerability are already high,” she says. For aspirants who spend years preparing, disruptions trigger anxiety, self-doubt and a deep erosion of trust. “Students begin to worry about delays in their academic journey and future opportunities,” she says. “That psychological strain can be as damaging as the leak itself.”
Pradeep Jain, managing director of Udaan 360 Edutech Pvt Ltd, argues that a paper leak is never just about a postponed exam. “Every time a high-stakes examination like NEET runs into disruptions, it forces us to confront a deeper question: how secure and reliable are these systems, and at what cost to students? Even those who have done nothing wrong begin to carry the burden of doubt.” He emphasises that reform must go beyond technical fixes, calling for encrypted digital transmission, AI-driven monitoring, stricter accountability and clear contingency frameworks for re-examinations.
What makes the current crisis particularly unsettling is that it feels both new and deeply familiar. In the novel Raag Darbari, Shrilal Shukla captured, with biting satire, the slow erosion of institutional integrity in India’s education system. Decades later, the tools have changed—encrypted messaging apps instead of handwritten notes, digital payments instead of cash—but the underlying anxiety remains the same. That systems meant to reward merit can be manipulated, that rules can be bent, that effort does not always translate into outcome.
The legal process, meanwhile, moves at a pace that offers little reassurance. Cases drag on for years, often a decade or more. By the time a verdict is reached, the immediate impact has faded and the individuals involved might no longer be in positions of accountability. This delay weakens deterrence.
Back in Nalanda, Manish has returned to his books. There could be reforms, but for now, the uncertainty lingers. “I will still study,” he says, quietly. “But now I also worry what if it happens again?” That question, more than any statistic or headline, captures the essence of the crisis. Because an examination system does not run on paper or software alone. It runs on trust. And once that trust begins to fracture, rebuilding it becomes far more difficult than preventing the breach in the first place.