New Delhi, May 12: The CBI lodged an FIR on Tuesday in connection with the alleged leak of the NEET (UG) 2026 paper, officials said.
The high-stakes entrance examination, held on May 3 for admission to undergraduate medical courses, was cancelled by the National Testing Agency (NTA) on Tuesday after allegations of malpractice surfaced.
After receiving a reference from the Centre, the CBI moved with alacrity, registering a case of criminal conspiracy, cheating and other offences, the officials said.
The agency will soon dispatch a team to Rajasthan to collect material from the Special Operations Group (SOG) of the state police, which was investigating the case.
The CBI had earlier solved the NEET paper-leak cases of 2024.
The Centre has referred the matter to the CBI for what the officials described as a “comprehensive inquiry” into allegations of paper leak linked to the examination.
The NEET-UG 2026 was conducted in 551 Indian cities and at 14 overseas centres.
Nearly 23 lakh candidates had registered for the test, which was administered by the NTA at centres across the country.
According to the NTA, information relating to alleged malpractice was received on the evening of May 7, four days after the examination was held. The NTA said the inputs were escalated to central agencies the following morning for “independent verification and necessary action”.
The Rajasthan Police’s SOG had claimed that a “guess paper” for chemistry that was allegedly circulated among students ahead of the examination had approximately 410 questions, including roughly 120 questions that appeared in the test.
While the chemistry paper in the exam carries 45 questions, the test used four sets of question papers.
“It is reported that this guess paper had been circulating among the students well in advance; it began reaching them as early as 15 days to a month prior to the actual examination. We are investigating on the basis of the guess paper and it is also available in open domain,” ADG, SOG, Vishal Bansal had said.
