One layer after the other is being unearthed in the alleged NEET UG 2026 paper leak scandal. On 3rd May, over 22 lakh students appeared for the high-stakes exam conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA). Despite the promises of conducting a leak-proof exam, NTA could not prevent a guess paper, similar to the actual paper, from making its way to WhatsApp and Telegram groups for sale days before the exam.
‘Private Mafia’ WhatsApp group, NEET ‘guess paper’ for sale and a trail that led investigators to the paper leak scandal
The scandal came to the fore after a handwritten guess paper closely matched a significant portion of the actual question paper, particularly the Chemistry and Biology sections. A handwritten note containing around 410 questions, with a 281-question set, circulated among students over WhatsApp, Telegram groups and coaching networks, particularly in Rajasthan’s Sikar, Uttarakhand’s Dehradun, and other coaching hubs.
Before the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) took over the probe into the alleged paper leak, the Rajasthan Police’s Special Operation Group (SOG) found striking similarities in the actual paper and the circulated guess paper, with around 120-140 questions, mainly Biology and Chemistry-related, matching exactly or very closely.
Around 135 questions from the guess paper are reported to have matched with the actual paper, accounting for around 600 marks out of 720. Each question in the NEET paper carries 4 marks.
The guess paper was circulated through a WhatsApp Group named “Private Mafia”. The Rajasthan SOG said that the group administrator charged around ₹5,000 for membership alone and instructed members not to share the guess paper. Nonetheless, the paper was widely circulated.
THE ‘GUESS PAPER’ ANGLE
A video now surfacing allegedly shows a WhatsApp group named “Private Mafia” with nearly 400 members. The group description reportedly states it was created exclusively to upload leaked exam papers and warns members not to forward them outside the group.… pic.twitter.com/hk4P9PAnif— Rahul Shivshankar (@RShivshankar) May 12, 2026
Preliminary investigation indicated that the alleged paper leak happened in Maharashtra’s Nashik; however, the state police later denied these claims. On Tuesday, Kirankumar Chauhan, Deputy Commissioner of Police, said that they received a request from the Rajasthan Police regarding a suspect involved in the NEET paper leak case. The Nashik Police acted on the request of the Rajasthan Police and took the accused into custody, and handed the accused over to the CBI.
The arrested accused has been identified as Shubham Khairnar. He was a medical student in Madhya Pradesh’s Bhopal and resided in Nashik. Khairnar obtained the NEET UG 2026 question paper from one of his associates in Pune. The accused received a hard copy, and from thereon, he circulated a soft copy through WhatsApp groups. The police are currently probing if the circulated question paper was a ‘guess paper’ or the actual question paper.
“Khairnar was a student of Bachelor of Ayurveda, Medicine and Surgery (BAMS) in Bhopal last year and stays in Nashik with his family. We received information from the Rajasthan SOG early Tuesday morning about taking him into custody. We apprehended him and brought him to the crime branch office. As per the preliminary inquiry, he was also a part of the (paper leak) syndicate. We are now transferring him to the CBI,” Kishor Kale, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Nashik City, said.
Meanwhile, Kirankumar Chauhan, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Nashik, revealed that Shubham Khainar changed his appearance to escape identification and arrest; however, the Crime Branch managed to trace him through technical analysis.
Khairnar is alleged to have bought the NEET UG 2026 question paper for Rs 10 lakh and sold it later for Rs 15 lakh. He disseminated the ‘guess paper’ to some people in Gurgaon/Gurugram, and from thereon, the paper reached students and career counsellors in Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir and other states.
“The accused had changed his appearance by cutting his hair, making identification difficult. However, based on technical analysis and police investigation, the Crime Branch team managed to trace and detain him.
In addition to Shubham Khairnar, an MBBS student from Rajasthan’s Shekhawati, who is studying in Kerala, also came under the radar of the investigators. He sent the guess paper to his friend in Sikar on 1st May, two days before the exam.
From thereon, the guess paper went viral among aspirants and soon reached a PG operator, further spreading to students, career counsellors, and other candidates. An India Today report says that the PG operator is the father of the Kerala MBBS student and received the paper directly from him.
After the exams were over on 3rd May, the same PG operator in Sikar filed a police complaint at Udyog Nagar Police Station, alleging that a large number of students had received the problematic question bank.
The police swung into action after the National Testing Agency verified a complaint letter the PG operator wrote to the agency. However, it soon emerged that the complaint whistleblower PG operator himself had received the guess paper identical to the actual question paper, and forwarded it to several students and counsellors. The PG operator reportedly asked a teacher at a coaching centre in Sikar to verify how many questions from the guess paper, actually appeared in the exam.
It turned out that all 90 questions in Biology and 45 in Chemistry in the actual NEET UG question paper were the exact same as those in the 281-question guess paper. For the Chemistry portion, even the sequence and framing of the questions in the actual question paper was aligned with the guess paper.
The authorities suspect that the PG operator might have filed the complaint to protect himself from police action if and when the scandal comes under investigation.
The Rajasthan SOG questioned over 150 NEET UG 2026 candidates and their parents. The police team prepared a list of 150 aspirants and 70 parents. This list has been handed over to the CBI.
According to Ajay Pal Lamba, the Rajasthan SOG Inspector General, those behind the paper leak planned to sell the actual question paper as ‘guess paper’. The officer said that the paper leak was carried out by an organised group. However, much like the Nashik City DCP, who rejected the reports that the paper leak originated from Maharashtra, Officer Lamba also denied Rajasthan being the epicentre of the leak.
“Questioning several persons has pointed to an organised group. All these suspicious persons are being questioned by the CBI now. It is wrong to say that Rajasthan is the epicentre; it reached the state via other states. Before Rajasthan, it had reached a person near Gurgaon. It did not originate in Rajasthan,” the Rajasthan SOG Inspector General said.
Notably, the leaked “guess paper” was sold for ₹30,000 to a price as high as ₹5 to ₹30 lakh in several networks. It has emerged that two brothers, Mangilal and Dinesh Biwal, from Rajasthan’s Jamwa Ramgarh, have allegedly purchased the NEET UG 2026 paper from a doctor in Gurugram for ₹30 lakh one week before the examination.
One of the brothers in this duo gave the purchased ‘guess paper’ to his son, preparing for the NEET exam in Sikar. He also sold the question paper to several people on 29th April, just four days before the exam. The paper was sold to a Sikar-based MBBS counselling agent, Rakesh Kumar Mandawaria. It was Mandawaria who sold the paper to the student from Sikar pursuing MBBS in Kerala for ₹30,000.
Amidst a massive outrage over the alleged paper leak, the National Testing Agency issued a statement on 12th May, saying that the NEET UG examination conducted on 3rd May stands cancelled, and a fresh date for reconducting the exam will be announced later. Despite claims of understanding the distress this entire fiasco is causing to NEET UG aspirants, the tone-deaf statements from the NTA are exacerbating frustration.
In continuation of its press release dated 10 May 2026, the National Testing Agency wishes to inform candidates, parents, and members of the public of the following decisions taken in respect of NEET (UG) 2026. NTA had, on 8 May 2026, referred the matters then under consideration…
— National Testing Agency (@NTA_Exams) May 12, 2026
During a media interaction, NTA director Abhishek Singh ‘clarified’ that the entire question paper was never available on social media prior to the exam. “No, the entire paper was never available on Telegram or any other channel as far as we have verified the reports,” Singh said.
Singh even insinuated that a NEET UG 2026 exam paper leak did not even happen since the full question paper as is, was not circulated on WhatsApp and Telegram groups and sold.
“I don’t know how you define a leak But I will call it something which has happened, which has violated the 100% integrity of the examination and our commitment to a zero-error examination. In so far as the typical, traditional way of leak is concerned, no question paper in the form of a complete question paper has leaked anywhere,” Singh said.
VIDEO | NEET UG 2026: NTA Director General Abhishek Singh says, “The paper conducted on May 3 had four code versions. None of the papers were found in the market, and no leak has been established. In the PDF that circulated, there were many questions, and some of them appeared… pic.twitter.com/O1axvtT8U4
— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) May 12, 2026
“What has happened is that a guess paper in the form of a PDF was circulating on WhatsApp, and it had a few questions which were matching with the questions which were asked. When we verified whether this was in circulation before May 3, it was found that some of it was. So, given that a few questions were available to some people before the examination, it makes it unfair for the 22.79 lakh students who were preparing for this examination with their hard work,” the NTA chief continued.
The audacity to even say that the guess paper had “a few questions which were matching with the questions which were asked” is alarming. Nearly 135 questions from the guess paper reportedly matched with the actual paper, accounting for around 600 marks out of 720. 600 marks is not a mere passing score or the result of a ‘few questions’; it is a very strong score that can place an aspirant among the top 1–2% of candidates and unlock chances of an MBBS seat in government medical colleges.
Meanwhile, Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan did not even care to take media questions about the NEET UG exam paper leak.
Plea filed in the Supreme Court to replace NTA and conduct NEET UG exam under judicial supervision
With one paper leak after the other, the students are losing their little remaining faith in the National Testing Agency. Now, the Federation of All India Medical Association (FAIMA) has filed a plea before the Supreme Court challenging what it describes as NTA’s “systemic failure”. The petition has sought the top court’s direction for the replacement or fundamental restructuring of the NTA and to conduct a fresh NEET-UG 2026 exam under judicial supervision.
The plea seeks the Central government to replace the NTA with a “more robust, technologically advanced, and autonomous body” for conducting NEET examinations.
Further, the petition sought the constitution of a High-Powered Monitoring Committee headed by a retired Supreme Court judge, along with a cybersecurity expert and a forensic scientist. The petitioner demanded that this committee should supervise the re-conduct of NEET UG 2026 exam until a new independent examination body is formally constituted by the Centre.
In addition, the plea moved by FAIMA also sought the Supreme Court’s directions for the digital locking of question papers and a shift to a Computer-Based Test (CBT) model to eliminate the physical chain-of-custody risks
Why Sikar? Is Rajasthan’s ‘mini-Kota’ a cheating hub?
Under Rajasthan’s Shekhawati region, Sikar has emerged as the main epicentre in this alleged NEET UG paper leak scandal, just as many previous leaks have been traced to coaching hubs. Emerging as “mini-Kota”, Sikar is a significant NEET/JEE coaching centre cluster, having hundreds of institutes, PGs, and hostels housing aspirants from across the country.
As mentioned above, the leaked ‘guess paper reached Sikar via Haryana’s Gurugram, and was widely circulated among aspirants, counsellors, and coaching networks there. Rakesh Mandawaria, the MBBS counsellor in Sikar was among the first ones to receive and sell the guess paper for ₹30,000. Mandawaria operated a counselling centre named SK Consultancy on Piprali Road in Sikar, opposite a coaching institute.
The raids conducted by Rajasthan SOG in Sikar, Churu, Jhunjhunu, and other areas indicate presence of an organized ecosystem that exploited the desperation of students to clear the medical entrance exam.
Sikar, however, has not made headlines for the first time in the context of NEET exams. The coaching hub made news after the declaration of the NEET UG 2024 exam results. It was found that of 50 exam centres that had the highest percentage of candidates scoring marks above 650, 37 centres were situated in the Sikar district alone.
Over 2000 students from Sikar are reported to have secured marks above 650 in NEET UG 2024 and 8 out of the 10 top-performing centres were located in Sikar. In fact, 149 students from Sikar scored more than 700 out of 720 marks, with one getting a perfect 720 out of 720 score.
This unusual clustering of top scorers in Sikar had raised suspicion, however, the authorities did not prioritise camping in the district to thoroughly probe the presence of networks involved in paper leaks.
The Sikar district is also reported to house coaching institutes that enjoy political influence and are allegedly funding local-level elections. Over the years, as Kota, India’s coaching capital, became chaotic and witnessed increased student suicides, Sikar gained ground as an alternative coaching hub.
One of the first coaching institutes in Sikar was opened in 1996, and since then, the district has grown into a massive coaching hub, attracting aspirants from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Delhi and other states. Sikar’s coaching hub owed its rapid rise to its marketing as a “less stressful” alternative to Kota, cheaper hostels, and personalised mentoring. In recent years, coaching giants like ALLEN and Physicswallah have established their centres in Sikar. Reports say that by 2023, Sikar coaching hub ascended from being an alternative to Kota to becoming a direct competitor.
However, with the expansion of the coaching centre cluster, allegations of malpractice also emerged. It is alleged that the cut-throat competition between coaching clusters to prove themselves as topper-generating machines has compelled these coaching networks to indulge in illegal and unethical practices like paper leak.
In 2015, Manoj Sharma, director of a coaching institute in Sikar, was arrested after allegations of the Army recruitment exam paper leak emerged. Several students had alleged that the question paper was circulated among students through WhatsApp groups and coaching network operators in Sikar.
Back in 2021, when the Rajasthan Eligibility Examination for Teachers (REET) paper leak case was reported in Rajasthan, the investigation zeroed in on coaching networks in Sikar. In 2023, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) raided Kalam Academy’s centres in Sikar and other neighbouring districts as part of its 2021 REET paper leak probe. The ED acted after Rajasthan Police SOG found that the 2021 REET paper leak was carried out by organised networks, with active involvement of middlemen, coaching-linked operators and financial transactions spanning crores of rupees.
Similar, pattern emerged during the 2024 NEET paper leak as well. However, the probe somehow did not gain much momentum.
Entrepreneur-educationist Maheshwar Peri had raised alarms about the problematic activities of coaching networks in Sikar in 2024 as well. Now again, Peri has raised concerns over the allegedly suspiciously high success rate of Sikar’s coaching hub. Sikar has a success rate around 6 t 7% higher than the national average.
“… The hub of this entire operation is Sikar, where the success rate is 6 times the national average. A similar thing happened in 2024, too, but the allegations were brushed under the carpet. Had we dealt with it in 2024 with an iron hand, this wouldn’t have repeated,” Peri posted on X.
“The modus operandi is simple. In Sikar, the students are called in for a mock test a day before the actual exam and made to prepare for each of the questions on the guess paper. The students had 140 of the 180 questions prepared, thus guaranteeing 600 of the 720 marks even before they entered the exam hall,” he added.
Clearly, beyond the ‘academic excellence’ claims, Sikar’s coaching network has a documented history of irregularities in competitive exams. Discontinuing the past neglect, the authorities need to thoroughly investigate this town’s coaching cluster to prevent further paper leaks and consequent distress and devastation to lakhs of students.
Overall, there are many unanswered questions. Since NEET is a paper-and-pen examination, and the copies of the question paper are transported to more than 5000 exam centres across the country, the time gap is usually weeks before the exam. Despite there being a fear of paper leaks, why has no concrete solution been found by the NTA yet? Was there an insider involvement in the paper leak? Was the ‘guess paper’ procured during the printing process? The cancellation of the NEET UG exam indicates that the scandal is way bigger than it seems. Why has NTA not revealed the full extent of the rot? Is not the right time to pivot to the Computer-based test format? And most importantly, how long will this exam-paper leak-cancellation-reexam spiral go on?
