NTA casually ignored Supreme Court order to overhaul system after 2024 leak: FAIMA petition

The Federation of Indian Medical Association (FAIMA) has flagged the “recurring, systemic, and catastrophic” failure of the National Testing Agency (NTA) in conducting the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET-UG) and has urged the Supreme Court to take a “stricter approach”.

The NTA “casually” ignored recommendations of the Radhakrishnan Committee and the top court’s directions after the 2024 leak. “Mechanism should be in place to ensure that any non-compliances will lead to exemplary penalties,” FAIMA said in a petition.

FAIMA said “repeated digital breaches” and “administrative paralysis” in the NTA that cause multiple paper leaks warrant that the Supreme Court should invoke its extraordinary jurisdiction under Article 142, which it had earlier used to “strip the Medical Council of India of its independent policy making powers”.

The petition wanted the apex court to “step in and order the creation of a modern, foolproof, and transparent system so that the futures of millions of students are never put at risk again”.

Over-reliance on vendors

The petition said NTA relies heavily on unverified private service providers for logistics, including centre management and security, funnelling public funds into lowest bidder infrastructure despite repeated warnings against it by Parliamentary Standing Committees and the apex court when it heard the NEET UG 2024 paper leak case.

It said that the top court had pointed out lapses in NTA’s system in 2024. These included unauthorised access to strongrooms, transportation of highly sensitive examination materials on e-rickshaws and through private couriers, the absence of any prescribed time limit for the submission of OMR sheets, and a complete lack of direct oversight over the invigilators. 

In 2024, the rear door of a strongroom in Hazaribagh was opened and unauthorised persons were permitted to access the question papers before the exam. “Despite these lapses being explicitly pointed out by SC, the NTA has failed to implement meaningful corrective action,” FAIMA said. 

“NTA continues to rely on risky, old-fashioned methods like physically printing question papers and using private couriers for transport making it prone to leak,” the petition said, adding, “It is also excessively dependent on third parties to outsource the management of exam centers and to the transport of exam materials thereby destroying the secrecy of this examination.”

Future leaks

The petition said that attempting to re-conduct NEET-UG 2026 using the exact same flawed methods and private contractors, without first implementing the Radhakrishnan Committee’s safety measures, is “highly irresponsible”. “It practically guarantees that another paper leak will happen, causing further trauma to the students,” it said.

In 2024, the Supreme Court had cautioned that the NTA, which is entrusted with the conduct of competitive exams, cannot afford missteps and then course-correct later. Flip-flops are an anathema to fairness, it had said.

The petition said that though NTA had assured candidates that the exam process will not be tampered with, it had to cancel NEET-UG 2026. 

“Such contradictory and reactive administrative conduct demonstrates absence of institutional preparedness, lack of responsible decision-making, and complete failure to maintain the degree of certainty, and fairness which were expected from a national examination body entrusted with the future of lakhs of students,” the petition said.

Cosmetic upgrades

While the Radhakrishnan Committee suggested that the NTA upgrade its logistics, storage and transportation protocols, the NTA continued to rely on a massive, outdated physical chain of custody. It did not transition to a secure and encrypted digital delivery system.

“By irresponsibly outsourcing these critical duties to lowest-bidder private contractors and unverified logistical partners, the NTA left the question papers completely exposed. This total failure in physical security allowed criminals to easily access, copy, and distribute the paper long before the exam date,” the petition said. 

The NTA’s claimed technological upgrades, such as GPS tracking and 5G jammers, were “useless and cosmetic”. “These leaks are happening for years now which proves that the absence of a resilient and transparent mechanism within the current NTA framework,” FAIMA said.

Lack of enforcement

The repeated occurrence of examination leaks demonstrates failure of enforcement despite the enactment of the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024. The government strengthened anti-paper leak measures through the Act, under which organised paper leak rackets can face up to 10 years in prison, yet this legislation has proved woefully inadequate in the absence of any preventive institutional architecture to enforce it proactively, the petition said.

This Act is purely punitive in nature providing remedies only after a leak has occurred and contains no provision for a permanent independent body to proactively audit, monitor, and prevent leaks.

“State cannot repeatedly betray this expectation, cancel examinations post-facto, order CBI probes, and return to the same defective system for the next cycle. Such a pattern of conduct is not merely negligent it is a constitutional failure,” the petition said. 

“The recurrence of an even larger compromise in 2026 (as compared to 2024 leak) demonstrates ‘institutional incapacity’ rather than ‘accidental failure’,” FAIMA said. 

“In light of such a systemic collapse, the mere cancellation of the exam is a ‘band-aid’ solution to a ‘surgical’ problem. There is an urgent need for SC to exercise its extraordinary jurisdiction under Article 32 to lay down strict, permanent guidelines for transparency and digital security.”