By Shishir Prashant 
PrashantNews
The National Testing Agency (NTA) on Tuesday cancelled NEET (UG) 2026 conducted on May 3 and said the examination will be re-conducted on dates to be notified separately.
The government also ordered a CBI probe which will inquire various allegations linked to the exam where nearly 22 lakh students had appeared. The cancellation follows allegations of large-scale alleged malpractices, primarily centred on a pre-circulated “guess paper” that reportedly matched around 120 questions in Chemistry and showed significant overlaps in Biology with the actual NEET UG 2026 question paper. According to media reports, this material had reached coaching hubs such as Sikar, Rajasthan up to a month in advance and was allegedly sold to aspirants for sums as high as 730,000 even the night before the exam, prompting investigations by Rajasthan’s Special Operations Group that included raids and questioning of multiple individuals.
The Special Operation Group (SOG) of the Rajasthan police has recently arrested five persons including the mastermind , a Sikkar-based career counsellor from Dehradun in connection with the alleged paper leak of NEET, media reports said.
NTA had, on 8 May 2026, referred the matters then under consideration to the central agencies for independent verification and necessary action, consistent with its standing commitment to the fair, secure, and credible conduct of the national examinations entrusted to it.
“On the basis of the inputs subsequently examined by NTA in coordination with the central agencies, and the investigative findings shared by the law enforcement agencies and in order to ensure that there is transparency in the system, the NTA with the approval of the government has decided to cancel the NEET (UG) 2026 examination conducted on 3 May 2026, and to re-conduct the examination on dates that will be notified separately,” an official statement said.
The inputs received by NTA, taken together with the findings shared by the law enforcement agencies, established that the present examination process could not be allowed to stand. The re-conducted examination dates, along with the re-issued admit-card schedule, will be communicated through the official channels of the Agency in the coming days.
The registration data, candidature, and examination centres opted for in the May 2026 cycle will be carried forward to the re-conducted examination. No fresh registration will be required, and no additional examination fee will be levied. In addition, fees already paid, will be refunded to the students and the exam will be re-conducted using NTA’s internal resources, the statement said.
Further communications, including the re-conducted examination dates and the re-issued admit-card schedule, will be issued through the official channels of the Agency. Candidates and parents have been asked to rely only on these official channels and to disregard unverified reports circulating on social media.