India's Exam Watchdog on Trial

Synopsis

The National Testing Agency (NTA), which conducts entrance tests for more than 23 million students across India every year, has been grappling with a series of crises in the last two years, from paper leaks in NEET-UG 2024 and 2026 to technological glitches in CUET and an unsettling lack of government backing for the necessary changes. The Supreme Court has now issued a second question about whether the agency has the necessary structure to protect the futures of millions of people.

In August 2022, Garima Shreya took the Central University Entrance Test with the anticipation that it would start. It didn't — not for hours. She was informed by this time she would have to be seen for the fourth time when she left. A few months ago, the National Testing Agency (NTA) had cancelled CUET exams at more than 400 test centres nationwide because of server failure.

Similarly, a technical glitch at vendor TCS iON led to a near-replica of the situation, with candidates stuck in their centres with the clock ticking and the screens frozen over 3,700 registrants of the CUET-UG exams, 31 days later on May 31, 2026, during Shift 1 of the exams.

The frequency is difficult to believe is a coincidence for an agency that has to perform some of the most important exams in the country. The NTA's problems have morphed from a logistical embarrassment into a constitutional issue: the Supreme Court of India has now come out with a question: Can an agency running an exam be reformed at all?

A Pattern of Failure: NEET 2024 to NEET 2026

NTA conducted NEET-UG for a record 23.33 lakh candidates on May 5, 2024, a rise of 14.4 per cent from the 20.38 lakh candidates who registered last year. The results were announced on June 4, 2024, which immediately raised suspicions.

67 candidates earned a full 720 out of 720, which is "unusual" for a test under normal circumstances, according to statisticians.

What the independent mathematicians calculated to be a probability of around 0.000000001 per cent is that six of the eight candidates who appeared for the exam in a single centre in the Faridabad district of the state secured 720 marks.

The CBI, which had assumed the probe from the police in Bihar and Gujarat, arrested those who had allegedly paid from ₹30 lakh to ₹50 lakh in advance for the question paper. In a June 2024 observation that was surprising in its directness, the Supreme Court said, "Sanctity of the exam has been compromised. So we need answers.

A vacation bench of Justices Vikram Nath and S.V.N. Bhatti also observed that any negligence, even "0.001 per cent," must be meted out completely.

In response, the government set up a seven-member High-Level Committee of Experts (HLCE) with Dr. K. Radhakrishnan, former ISRO Chairman, as the Chairman of the committee in June 2024. On October 21, 2024, the committee submitted its report, which contained 101 recommendations across the areas of examination reforms, data security, institutional restructuring, mental health support and technological measures.

Its key suggestions include switching to computer-based testing, establishing a "Digi-Exam" authentication system based on Digi-Yatra, strengthening the governing body with sub-committees for oversight, and lowering reliance on contractual personnel and third-party testing vendors.

NEET 2026: The Same Crisis, Twice

NEET-UG was conducted by NTA on May 3, 2026. The agency cancelled the examination nine days later on May 12, citing new claims of a question paper leak. Over 5,400 centres in 550 cities will be re-examined on June 21, 2026.

The Federation of All India Medical Association (FAIMA) and United Doctors Front (UDF) have filed petitions in the Supreme Court demanding a structural change of the NTA.

Despite a court-ordered reform process, the Supreme Court had some words of condemnation for the NTA on May 25, 2026: "2024 is when the NTA needs to have learnt something".

Both the NTA and Dr. Radhakrishnan were instructed to file affidavits within three days detailing the action being taken to implement the recommendations of the 101 committee.

In an affidavit, NTA claimed that it had made "wide-ranging structural and security reforms. In another affidavit dated May 29, 2026, Dr. Radhakrishnan said a "majority" of these recommendations have already been implemented or are in the process of being implemented.

The court did not ignore the difference between these assurances and the cancellation of an examination which was taken by lakhs of medical aspirants.

CUET: A Structural Problem Masquerading as a Technical One

In 2022, the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) was introduced as a unified entrance exam for central universities, aimed at alleviating the fragmentation of the admission process caused by multiple individual tests. The drive was for rationalisation of administration, but implementation was intermittent at best.

CUET 2022 Phase 2 was not conducted on the first day of the second phase of the test on over 400 test centres due to simultaneous server failure and paper delivery issues, as announced on its official website.

It was not an exception rather it was a representative story of Garima Shreya who appeared for the same paper four times. Students rang up hundreds of kilometres to find exams cancelled and parents posted on social media outside closed examination halls.

The UGC Chairman at that time claimed some cancellations were due to "sabotage," but failed to present any tangible evidence in the public eye.

It was repeated on May 30, 2026. The NTA's technology partner TCS iON reported technical glitches in the start of Shift 1 in various test centres for CUET-UG 2026. The NTA has modified the reporting time for the afternoon session from 3.00 pm to 2.30 pm and examination commencement time from 4.00 pm to 2.30 pm.

An extension was made to the examination and around 95 per cent of candidates took the examination, while the remaining 3,765 who left their centres before the examination resumed were given a single opportunity to re-examine.

In a statement, NTA said, "TCS has informed us that due to a technical glitch at their end, the exam was not being conducted on Saturday at some centres and this has been resolved. NTA deeply regrets the inconvenience caused to the students and parents.

It's a familiar "script" that has become the standard formulation of the statement: vendor attribution, assurance of compensation, apology. Business Standard reported that since its launch in 2022, the CUET has experienced "multiple operational disruptions in various stages.

such as sudden changes in examination centres, late entry and start of exams at some centres, and technical glitches like server and login failures at certain centres.

The process of structural diagnosis was described as such in the report of the Radhakrishnan committee

The HLCE's October 2024 report is the telling, most accurate diagnosis of the problem available of what is wrong with the NTA. Among the committee's findings was that the use of contract staff was a structural weakness:

"A more stable workforce is essential to maintaining security and efficiency of an agency running high-stakes examinations with millions of applicants," it stated. It has suggested decreasing the reliance on third-party service providers of examination centres, the same arrangement that got TCS iON into the disruption of the CUET exam in May 2026.

The committee recommended 10 new roles in the fields of administration, digital infrastructure and IT security. It suggested a "Digi-Exam" system, both in the process of application and testing as well as at the time of admission, for biometric authentication.

It called upon creation of empowered Coordination Committees at State and District levels with specific roles. It insisted on direct control of more examination centres by the government.

The committee got 37,144 public feedbacks from the MyGov web portal from students, parents, teachers, and academicians indicating the crisis was not lost on those who were most affected by it.

The extent to which the recommendations were followed up in a proper manner is not yet decided as of May 2026 before the Supreme Court.

The Wider Pattern: UPSC and the Integrity Question

The NTA's problems are not unique to the NTA. The Union Public Service Commission (UPS) had to cancel the selection of Puja Khedkar who had been found to have appeared multiple times in various examination cycles with fake identity, and disqualify her for life in 2024.

The UPSC said it had checked data of 15 000 candidates going back to 2009 to check if there were any other such incidents of limit attempts.

The commission also had previously considered taking criminal action against two candidates — Aysha Makrani and Tushar — who were accused of fake selection in the Civil Services Examination 2022.

The incidents across the three top exam conducting institutes in India - NTA and UPSC - indicate that the administrative apparatus that supports the examination system in India is not commensurate with the number of aspirants that it has to cater to, or the level of malpractices that it needs to deter.

What's at Stake is the Human Cost

The numbers in the aggregate mask the calculus of each. The 23.33 lakh candidates appearing for NEET-UG 2024 had spent an average of years of preparation, spent huge sums of money on coaching and study materials, and, in many cases, made one last attempt for a career path they had mapped out after the one afternoon of NEET-UG 2024.

The same goes for the 6.75 lakh students who applied to CUET-UG 2026. The cost of cancelling an examination, delaying it, or having it compromised, is not just logistical, it's a cost in deferred admissions, sunk costs, and, in some cases, far more serious personal costs when it comes to the attention of the courts and the public.

The cases of students facing acute distress after the results of NEET 2024 have led to a public apology by Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. In its July hearing, the Supreme Court specifically stated it "cannot forget the labour medical aspirants which had put in hard work for the preparation of one of toughest entrance examination in the country."

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The Supreme Court's May 2026 decision has limited the flexibility of the government's response. The court's orders to NTA and the committee headed by Radhakrishnan to submit affidavits regarding the implementation of the orders is effectively an audit of the implementation of the executive action by the apex court in matters pertaining to public administration, unusual but not unique, given that the Supreme Court is usually tasked with overseeing the functioning of the government.

There are two major lines of thought being explored within the policy debate. The first is that the NTA be restored to a position of functional credibility by the full and verifiable implementation of the 101 recommendations, including: workforce stabilisation, digital authentication, reduction in reliance on vendors, and an accountable governing structure.

The second, which some petitioners before the court prefer, is a more fundamental restructuring – either splitting the NTA's role between various bodies or removing certain high-stakes examinations, like NEET, from the NTA to other institutional frameworks.

The re-test of the NEET-UG will be an early gauge of whether the agency's commitments made to the Supreme Court are reflected in their security during operation or not, which is set for June 21, 2026. The chances of another failure for lakhs of aspirants, who sit for it, many of them for the second time in a matter of less than two months are practically zero.

India's examination system was conceived in the first place to give opportunity at scale based on merit in a democratic manner. It will be up to now to the Supreme Court, 23 million aspirants and the government to answer whether it continues to do so.