NEET leak, CUET chaos, CBSE glitches: A triple blow
The 12-year-old NDA government at the Centre is squirming all over as a fallout of the NEET and CBSE fiasco. The NEET is the acronym for the National Eligibility and Entrance Test, which conducts the annual examination to select candidates for the MBBS and BDS colleges in the country. The NEET isconducted by theNational Testing Agency(NTA), which conducts around15 examination rounds each year to selectsuitable candidates. The year 2026 saw NTA goofing up the show as the question paper for the NEET was leaked weeks before the date of the examination. When reports of the question paper getting leaked appeared in the public domain, the NEET authorities belittled the news and accused some vested interests of spreading fake news. But when it was proved that 120 out of the 410 questions featured in the NEET were released on social media, the Ministry of Human Resources Development had no option but to cancel the examination itself[1]. A supplementary examination would be held soon, said Dharmendra Pradhan, the minister for HRD. But the agony and anguish suffered by 2.3 million students still remain.
The BJP government at the Centre should have known the history of NEET much better than anybody. A cartel of private medical colleges had approached the Supreme Court against the then Medical Council of India’s move to hold a combined all-India examination to select students for undergraduate courses in medicine and dentistry[2]. A Bench consisting of Chief Justice Altamas Kabeer, Justices A R Dave and Vikramjit Sen, in a 2:1 verdict, ruled that the MCI and the GoI do not have the right to hold such a test. What is interesting is that this was the last verdict delivered by Kabeer, who demitted office in the afternoon and left for Calcutta. The new chief justice was told by Justice Dave that the verdict was not in line with the changing times, and hence, the court should hear the case again. The then CJI referred the matter to a Constitution Bench, which overruled the previous order and gave its verdict in favor of the NEET[3]. Hence, there is a strong group with international connections working against the centralized test. Admission to MBBS and BDS courses were money spinner for the proprietors. The central admission process based on NEET score turned out to be an anathema to these eduprenors as it chopped off their main source of income. The going rate for an MBBS seat was more than Rs one crore when the Medical Council of India introduced the NEET.
The NTA, which is entrusted with the task of holding the NEET, does not have a permanent chairman. Moreover, this strategic organization functions with staff hired on a contract basis. The CBI has been entrusted with the probe into the blunders committed by the NTA. Though there was a big-time question paper leak in the 2024 NEET, no serious action has been taken to resolve the issue. Ehsanul Haq, principal of the OASIS SCHOOL in Hazaribagh in Jharkhand, was arrested following the leak, but he has been promoted as director of the school since then. Shabbir Ahmed, chairman of OASIS SCHOOL, Imtiaz Alam, vice principal, and a local journalist, Jamaludin, were the others who were arrested in connection with the case. This year’s NEET question papers were leaked using hi-tech modus operandi. The question papers were marketed as Guess Papers, with the master brains charging anything between Rs 10 lakh to Rs 25 lakh per Guess Paper. Fifteen persons have been arrested by the CBI, and the probe is continuing. But the damage has been done, and the Union Ministry of HRD stands with egg on its face.
Soon after the NEET scandal, the CUET-UG (Combined University Entrance Test-Under Graduate) turned out to be the new scam. The test, held once a year to select candidates for the undergraduate courses in Indian universities, was held by Tata Consultancy Services. The online test held this year, in which 1.6 million candidates participated, was a disaster as thousands of students could not log in.
The third instance was that of the CBSE Examination Results were On Screen Marking ended up in glitches and errors. Thousands of students spread across the country complain that they got very few marks, though they had answered the questions diligently. As per the minister, a probe is on to zero in on the culprits. The Ministry of HRD had destroyed the careers of not only students but even that of union ministers. Smrithi Irani and Prakash Javadekar are some of the politicians who fell by the wayside, and they will soon be joined by Dharmendra Pradhan.
The Ministry of HRD failed to see the elephant in the room, as the BJP leadership was fully into the election campaign in the states that went to the polls. Having fought the government’s move to introduce the NEET as an all-India screening test and having lost the war, the private entrepreneurs were ready to go to any extent to get the power to select the students for their colleges. The pattern of subverting the examination had been going on for years, and this year they succeeded in their efforts. Conducting the NEET is not akin to developing space science technology, and the BJP leadership should have known the antecedents of the private medical college owners across the country.
It may be noted that the blunders in NEET, CBSE, and CUTE-UG examinations have put the BJP in an unenviable situation. The BJP’s spin doctors may have to work a lot to get the dirt cleaned from the party’s face. Overconfidence and lackadaisical approaches have played spoilsport. Exodus of leaders from other parties to the BJP in search of greener pastures should never be entertained lest the Hindutva party does not meet the same fate as the Janata Party. We have the examples of Satyapal Malik and Jagdeep Dhankhar in modern times.
The motto of these leaders is “Na Biwi Na Bachha, Na Baap Bada Na Maiyan
The Whole Thing Is That Ke Bhaiya Sabse Bada Rupaiya”
Altamas Kabir, the 39th Chief Justice of India. Was the nephew of former union minister and Congress leader Humayun Kabir. His father, Jehangir Kabir, too, was a Congress leader and a minister in the Ajoy Mukherjee-led United Front Government.
Note:
1. Text in Blue points to additional data on the topic.
2. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of PGurus.
Reference:
[1] ‘It’s traumatic, shouldn’t disappoint our youngsters’: SC asks Centre to make NEET fool-proof – May 29, 2026, ToI
[2] CJI Altamas Kabir’s Final Judgment Comes as Boon for Private Medical Colleges – Jul 19, 2013, ToI
[3] SC Recalls Its Controversial 2013 Verdict on Medical Entrance – Apr 12, 2016, New Indian Express
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