3 min readNew DelhiUpdated: May 21, 2026 10:54 PM IST
Officials from the National Testing Agency (NTA) told a Parliament panel on Thursday that the NEET-UG examination was cancelled because the situation had reached a point where the credibility of the examination was impacted, The Indian Express has learnt.
The remarks by the NTA officials were made at a meeting of a Parliamentary committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports, which is headed by Congress MP Digvijaya Singh.
Director General (DG) of the National Testing Agency (NTA), Abhishek Singh and NTA Pradeep Kumar Joshi appeared before the committee on Thursday.
Committee members from the Opposition parties are learnt to have raised questions regarding the alleged intelligence failure, urging that it should be viewed seriously. During Thursday’s meeting, demands were raised from Opposition members for senior NTA officials to take moral responsibility for the alleged leak.
Opposition leaders and NTA officials are learnt to have differed on calling the incident a “paper leak” with BJP members saying that it should be said that examination was compromised and not that there was a leak, Express has learnt.
The committee also directed the NTA to submit more detailed explanations on the alleged leak. NTA officials apparently told the committee that steps had been taken to conduct the re-examination in a flawless manner.
There were also objections from the Opposition camp during Thursday’s meeting regarding Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s comments at a press conference recently that the committee had members of the Opposition members and that their remarks were written in a “certain way”.
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The committee observed that the intelligence failure should be viewed seriously. During the meeting, demands were raised that senior officials should take moral responsibility. The committee directed the NTA to submit more detailed explanations. Officials from the Education Ministry informed the committee that the incident was unfortunate. The NTA also stated that steps had been taken to conduct the re-examination in a flawless manner. Committee members, including Dean Kuriakose, objected to the Union Education Minister’s statement that the Parliamentary Committee was “playing politics.”
The NEET-UG paper leak has seen the Opposition and government at loggerheads and while addressing a press conference after the leak of the NEET-UG question paper, Pradhan was asked about the issues that the Parliamentary Standing Committee had flagged in its report last year. Pradhan had replied: “I will not go by the opinion of the parliamentary committee. I will go by the recommendation of the Radhakrishnan committee…I will proceed based on facts; we won’t talk about assumptions. In political tones…I will respond in Parliament… The parliamentary standing committee has Opposition members. They write in a certain way, you also know that.”
