Signing you in

In an affidavit filed before the Supreme Court ahead of Friday’s hearing on pleas seeking the restructuring or replacement of the NTA, the agency has sought to demonstrate that it implemented sweeping reforms following the NEET controversy of 2024, and that the examination held on May 3 this year was conducted under what it describes as the most stringent security architecture in the history of the test.

The affidavit comes days after a Bench of Justices P S Narasimha and Alok Aradhe remarked that it was “sad that NTA has not learned lessons from the earlier NEET paper leak” while hearing petitions filed by the Federation of All India Medical Association (FAIMA) and the United Doctors Front (UDF).

At the heart of the NTA’s defence is a detailed account of the reforms it says were implemented under the supervision of a High-Powered Steering Committee headed by former ISRO chairman K Radhakrishnan.

The committee, constituted by the Ministry of Education in November 2024 after a High-Level Committee of Experts submitted 101 recommendations on examination reforms, continues to function and monitor implementation of those recommendations, the agency has said.

The affidavit states that the committee met repeatedly to review examination security, infrastructure and long-term reforms, including the possibility of shifting NEET from pen-and-paper mode to a computer-based format. According to the NTA, the May 3 examination was conducted at 5,432 centres across India and 14 centres abroad, with more than 22 lakh candidates appearing. The agency said the exam was held under a vastly strengthened security regime involving multiple layers of authentication and surveillance.

Candidates underwent Aadhaar-based biometric verification, including fingerprint authentication, live photograph capture and QR-code-based validation at examination centres. Any mismatch in facial recognition or Aadhaar authentication triggered immediate alerts to a central command centre and city-level authorities, the affidavit states. A hologram was affixed to the admit card after successful authentication.

The NTA further told the court that face authentication had been introduced at the registration stage and that a two-layer frisking mechanism was adopted, with state police conducting checks outside centres and NTA personnel carrying out a second round of screening inside examination venues using tens of thousands of handheld metal detectors.

To prevent electronic cheating, mobile jammers were installed at all 5,432 centres. Approximately 1.85 lakh CCTV cameras were deployed across examination halls, strong rooms, biometric counters, entry gates and corridors, with feeds monitored centrally and shared with district administrations and the Ministry of Education. AI tools were used to analyse the footage for signs of malpractice and unfair means.

The affidavit also details a five-tier monitoring architecture comprising NTA observers at centres, district-level coordination committees, state-level monitoring hubs located in higher educational institutions, a national command-and-control room in Delhi and an inter-departmental control room in the Ministry of Education.

Question paper security, according to the agency, was also overhauled. Multiple sets of question papers were prepared, special lengthy codes replaced the traditional A-B-C-D series, printing facilities were placed under enhanced surveillance, and question paper trunks were transported under a chain-of-custody protocol involving India Post, Central Armed Police Forces and district police escorts. Confidential operations were conducted in insulated rooms with no internet or mobile access, while questions were stored in encrypted formats.

The NTA further highlighted that 99.5 per cent of examination centres were government institutions and that 621 District-Level Coordination Committees headed by District Magistrates had been operationalised across the country to oversee examination preparedness and security. Yet, despite this elaborate framework, the agency told the court that the examination ultimately had to be scrapped.

According to the timeline set out in the affidavit, NEET-UG 2026 was conducted on May 3 under “full security protocol”. On the evening of May 7, NTA received inputs regarding alleged malpractice linked to the examination. The following morning, it escalated the matter to central agencies for independent verification and action. Based on findings shared by investigative agencies, the examination was subsequently cancelled and the matter referred to the Central Bureau of Investigation for a comprehensive probe.

The agency has argued that the decision to cancel the examination itself reflects the seriousness with which it viewed the allegations.

“The cancellation of the NEET (UG) 2026 examination conducted on 03.05.2026, and the reference of the matter to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on 12.05.2026 for investigation, are themselves illustrative of the seriousness with which the Answering Respondent and the Government of India view examination integrity,” the affidavit states.

The affidavit states that among all major NTA examinations, NEET remains the only test still conducted in pen-and-paper mode and that the expert committee had specifically recommended transitioning it to a Computer-Based Test (CBT) format along with multi-session testing. The agency informed the court that the transition would be implemented from the next examination cycle in consultation with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the National Medical Commission.