National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) has evolved as one of the Indiathe most high stakes examsWhere a student’s medical career often depends on his performance in a three-hour examination conducted once a year. The intense competition for medical seats, immense social prestige and high economic value of a medical degree creates enormous academic, financial and psychological pressures.
The risks are further increased by management quota entry, for which several crores of rupees can be offered, especially in family-owned hospitals. In such an environment, paper leaks, impersonation, unfair means, coaching-centre collusion, insider access and other forms of misconduct are not mere security failures, but manifestations of the powerful incentives surrounding medical admissions.
After the NEET-2026 controversy, the central government made unprecedented security arrangements for Indian public examinations. Coordinated by the Cabinet Secretary and involving the air force, paramilitary and police forces, AI-enabled surveillance, biometric authentication, GPS-tracked logistics and nearly seven lakh personnel, the exercise was comparable in scale to China’s Gaokao. It demonstrated that the logistics of a high-level examination could be secured through an extraordinary national security and administrative effort.
Yet the central question remains: Do these unprecedented measures address the real vulnerabilities of NEET, or only its most visible components – the question papers and the physical movement of personnel?
Recurring anomalies, missing answers
Since its inception in 2013, NEET has repeatedly faced controversies involving paper leaks, score inflation and allegations of unusually high performing candidates being lured from special centres, rooms, families and coaching centres. Concerns have also been raised about the weak correlation between NEET performance, Class XII marks and subsequent performance in medical education. Their frequent occurrence requires close investigation.
The credibility crisis was so severe that a complete re-examination was initiated in 2015 (erstwhile AIPMT) and extraordinary intervention followed the NEET-2024 controversy. The 2024 episode exposed systemic weaknesses, including an unprecedented cluster of wrong question papers, grace marks, inflated marks and almost perfect marks of candidates.
More importantly, a few weeks before NEET-2026, allegedly highly targeted question compilations were circulated in several parts of the country. After the exam, several candidates claimed that an unusually large number of questions closely matched the broadcast material. Yet it appears that no intelligence, cyber security, law-enforcement or National Testing Agency (NTA) acted on these signals before the controversy came to light through the whistleblower’s FIR, which ultimately led to the cancellation of the exam.
Official submissions before the Supreme Court emphasized compliance with the Radhakrishnan Committee recommendations and establishment of SOPs, while allegations of leaks were deemed to arise from specific inputs. If NTA did not find any credible abnormality, what is the justification for canceling NEET-2026 and imposing huge social, psychological and economic costs on over two million students?
Where do leaks actually originate? insider vulnerability
Most of the previous investigations failed to establish any printed-paper leaks, yet the NEET-2026 re-test security architecture was highly focused on the security of printed question papers. This raises an obvious question: does the primary vulnerability lie elsewhere?
Before printing, question papers undergo question setting, moderation, translation and digitization, during which a small group of individuals receive privileged access. The highly targeted, precise question compilation and frequent presence of coaching materials resembling exam content point to potential information flow in these source stages.
The risk increases when the same experts allegedly appear in exams and tests again and again over the years while maintaining direct or indirect connections to the coaching ecosystem. Such leaks need not involve entire papers; Fragments, content, and high-probability questions can be enough to generate substantial profits. If information is selectively disseminated through insider networks, a single printed question paper may be leaked repeatedly without being leaked or recovered.
Will isolating the experts stop the leak?
Isolating question setters, arbiters, and translators assumes that leaks occur only after they are limited. But if their identities and information are already circulating through informal networks, isolation does not address the real source of risk.
The bigger concern is the repeated involvement of some experts in years and examinations, often amid allegations of links with the coaching ecosystem and other business interests. In such circumstances, the information gain need not take the form of a leaked paper; They may manifest as targeted question banks, recurring themes, or unusually accurate predictions.
Therefore, the real issue is not imprisonment for a few days, but the integrity, independence and conflict-free selection of experts. Without safeguards against conflicts of interest, frequent engagement, and strong networks, isolation can leave underlying vulnerabilities untouched.
Ignored Weaknesses
Despite unprecedented security measures, many critical vulnerabilities remain outside the current security framework.
Conflict of interest and prior verification: One of the most significant weaknesses is the lack of rigorous conflict of interest prevention and prior verification for setters, mediators and translators. Perceived connections between some experts and the coaching or commercial ecosystem raise concerns about the integrity of the question-setting process. No amount of monitoring or expert isolation can compensate for a compromised source. Therefore, stringent background checks, conflict of interest checks and intelligence-based surveillance are essential safeguards.
Unlimited Attempts and Age: A Structural Vulnerability: The National Medical Commission Act, 2019, mandates a single uniform entrance exam, not unlimited participation for decades. Yet as NEET neither imposes any upper age limit nor any restrictions on attempts, about half the population of candidates reportedly repeat. This has created a large pool of long-term aspiring candidates who are increasingly dependent on the coaching ecosystem and vulnerable to information asymmetry. Although repeated attempts may improve familiarity with the test, repeated attempts alone cannot be expected to improve academic ability and professional suitability indefinitely.
The problem is compounded by the fact that the eligibility threshold is set at the 50th percentile; The larger the pool of candidates who repeat for a longer period of time, the lower the effective qualifying score will be. Unlimited attempts and low eligibility thresholds encourage repeated participation and create conditions in which unfair practices can flourish.
Cyber security and operational blind spots: NEET-2026 exposes vulnerabilities beyond question papers. A teenager allegedly accessed the candidates’ accounts and attempted to divert the refund payments. At the same time, an ethical hacker reported accessing super-administrative functions, including supervisor management, appointment letters, and backend data export. At the same time, AI-enabled monitoring and surveillance systems reportedly failed to detect warning signals associated with the widely circulated “directed papers” controversy, even as glitches in the portal persisted. These incidents point to weaknesses in cyber security and exam preparation.
These are just some of the visible weaknesses. The bigger challenge is to understand where the information benefits come from, who benefits from them and how they spread through the network of coaching centres, intermediaries, insiders and the commercial ecosystem. Unless these root causes are addressed, additional security measures may shift the problem elsewhere rather than solving it.
the way forward
NEET-2026 demonstrated that a high-level examination can be conducted under an unprecedented security mechanism. However, securing the physical movement of question papers is only part of the challenge.
Future reforms should focus on the examination ecosystem itself: strict conflict of interest and prior verification of experts, stronger cyber security safeguards, intelligence-based monitoring of organized examination networks, and review of structural weaknesses such as unlimited attempts, absence of age limit and low eligibility threshold for private admissions.
Unless these vulnerabilities are addressed, additional layers of security may transfer the risk rather than eliminate it. Ultimately, the credibility of NEET will not depend on how securely the question papers are taken, but on whether the entire admission ecosystem is transparent, conflict-free and truly merit-driven.
(Rajeev Kumar is a former professor of computer science at IIT Kharagpur, IIT Kanpur, BITS Pilani and JNU and a former scientist at DRDO and DST.)
