New Date Announced for NEET-UG 2026 Amid Paper Leak Row; Exam to Be Held on June 21
New Delhi, 15th May 2026: The National Testing Agency (NTA), with approval from the Government of India, has announced a fresh date for the NEET-UG 2026 examination following the cancellation of the earlier exam amid the nationwide paper leak controversy. The medical entrance examination will now be conducted on Sunday, June 21.
The announcement came after a high-level meeting chaired by Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Thursday, two days after the cancellation of the examination. The meeting focused on conducting the re-examination and reviewing the ongoing investigation into the alleged paper leak.
Senior officials, including Higher Education Secretary Vineet Joshi, School Education Secretary Sanjay Kumar, NTA Director General Abhishek Singh, CBSE Chairperson Rahul Singh, and commissioners of Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS) and Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti (NVS), attended the meeting.
Meanwhile, protests over the NEET paper leak intensified across the country. In Ahmedabad, NSUI workers showed black flags to Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and attempted to stop his convoy on Thursday. Police later detained several protesters.
CBI Arrests Continue
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is probing the case, has so far arrested seven accused persons in connection with the paper leak. Delhi’s Rouse Avenue Court has sent five accused to seven days’ custody.
Among those arrested are Mangi Lal Binwal from Rajasthan’s Sikar, brothers Dinesh Binwal and Vikas Binwal from Jamwaramgarh, Yash Yadav from Gurugram in Haryana, and Shubham Khairnar from Nashik. Investigators alleged that Shubham had supplied the leaked paper to Yash Yadav.
Shubham Khairnar was arrested on May 12 by Nashik Police and investigating agencies.
Separate Admission Fraud Racket Busted
In a parallel development linked to the NEET controversy, Delhi Police claimed to have busted an organised gang accused of cheating NEET aspirants and their families on the pretext of securing MBBS admissions in medical colleges.
Four people, including an alleged kingpin and a doctor, were arrested in the case. One of the accused has been identified as Santosh Kumar Jaiswal, said to be the national secretary of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). Police claimed Jaiswal was the mastermind of the network and allegedly lured families by promising medical admissions in exchange for amounts ranging from Rs 20 lakh to Rs 30 lakh.
Investigation Findings
According to CBI sources, the leaked NEET question paper was allegedly transported to Rajasthan through accused Yash Yadav. Investigators believe students were charged between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 5 lakh for access to the paper.
The probe also revealed that accused Vikas Binwal’s father, Dinesh Binwal, allegedly scanned a hard copy of the question paper and converted it into a PDF file. The accused are suspected of manually rewriting the questions before circulating scanned copies among students studying at coaching centres in Rajasthan’s Sikar district.
Officials said a “guess paper” recovered from a coaching centre teacher and a PG hostel operator in Sikar on the night of May 3 contained more than 150 questions that reportedly matched the original NEET paper out of 180 questions.
Investigators also found that more than 300 questions in the handwritten documents appeared to be written in the same handwriting.
Supreme Court Petition Filed
The Federation of All India Medical Association (FAIMA) has moved the Supreme Court seeking a re-examination under the supervision of the apex court. The association claimed it no longer had confidence in the NTA following the controversy.
NEET is India’s national-level entrance examination for admission to MBBS, BDS, AYUSH, nursing, and other medical courses across government and private institutions, including AIIMS and JIPMER. More than one lakh MBBS seats and over 27,000 BDS seats are filled through the examination annually.
The NEET-UG exam had also faced controversy in 2024 after allegations of paper leaks emerged in Bihar and Jharkhand. While the Supreme Court had then refused to cancel the entire examination, re-tests were conducted at select centres for affected candidates.
