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INDIA’S BROKEN EXAMINATION SYSTEM: LEGAL ANALYSIS OF THE COMPROMISED AREA

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Authored By: Pratyasha Rath

KIIT School of Law

Introduction

The cancellation of the entire examination was not just a tragedy for 23 lakhs of NEET-UG students but all the families who were involved in the preparation of these students, who took a lot of compromises, education loan, emotional investment, etc. and all of that went down the drain with an official notification from National Testing Agency (NTA) on 12th May, nine days after the NEET-UG examination on 3rd May 2026. In forensic analyses, 90 Biology and 45 Chemistry questions were sent out through WhatsApp and Telegram that have been matched to their original paper. Reports showed to purchase the leaked papers, candidates paid up to ₹20,000 to ₹5 lakh. The CBI took the investigation into their hands. Writ petition were filed in SC for the removal of NTA. This wasn’t a one-time event. It is an ongoing crisis. The problem of paper leakage in India is a structural, statistical and constitutional problem. Paper leaks have been so enormous in the last seven years that it actually has been recognized in the exam system as an organized crime. The law of the country has reacted — but not quick enough, not strongly enough.

Multi-layered Involvement

No state is left out in this illegal act. Multiple states were involved including Delhi, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh and so on. It is not just limited to NEET but other examinations as well like the board exams, national recruitment exams etc. Thus, we can say there is no such examination that is spared from such illegal act. State-based investigations have shown that the cause of paper leaks is not usually a single involvement of one employee but a well-organised multi-layered entity with specific roles: those who have access to printing or storage systems on the source side, those who use messaging platforms to transmit papers, those who are regional gatekeepers, and those on the student side who finish the deal.

Legislative Action

Over the past 30 years, examination fraud had been addressed by a combination of state-specific and generic criminal laws. The NEET-UG 2024 controversy was so widespread that the government had to take a strong decision to address it on the national level. The Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024 was enacted on 12th February and came into effect on 21st June 2024 and is the first Central law in Indian history aimed at combating examination fraud.

The Act makes it an offence to sell, distribute, publish or provide access to the question papers, to collude in leakage, to impersonate on the exam computer systems, to tamper with OMR sheets, to hack into the exam computer systems, or to run fake websites for the exams. All offences are made cognisable, non-bailable and non-compoundable. Penalties are progressive: those who conduct a cheating racket are sentenced to 5–10 years, fine of at least ₹1 crore, seizure of property, and they will be held liable to pay costs of re-conducting examinations; those running an organised cheating racket are sent to prison for 3–5 years, and fined up to ₹10 lakh, plus seizure of property and liability to pay re-conduct costs. Those candidates who are prevented from participating due to leaks are expressly released from liability. The candidates that suffer from disruption due to leaking are explicitly released from liability.

Constitutional Provision

The 2026 petitions represent a major doctrinal step up, setting forth the examination integrity as a fundamental right under Article 14 and 21. The argument in Article 14 is very persuasive. A leaked examination doesn’t only harm the honest candidate, it systematically helps out candidates who are able to access criminal networks and who have the finances to create their own examination papers. If the results of merit-based selection are bought, then it is not merit-based selection. Equality before the law is in practice denied when the only path to a profession is taken away by organized crime working on a large scale.

This is further complicated by Article 21. The right to life is a right which has been defined, developed, evolved and expanded through the years of Supreme Court decisions and covers livelihood, dignity and education (Article 21A). It is deprivation of these rights on the part of an examination affected on 22.7 lakh candidates — and no fault of the candidate — in case the examination is cancelled. If a student starts preparation for NEET-UG for three years and is not allowed to sit for the exam because of failure in the institution, then he/she should not bear the burden of this failure. The petitioners in 2026 have sought a positive judicial remedy, which is a speedy re-examination, accountability on the structure and a statute that is not subject to administrative cancellation.

The 2024 Act is a much-needed but insufficient piece of legislation. Criminal deterrence is like treating a symptom of the disease and not the disease itself. The powerful committee set up by the Supreme Court in Vanshika Yadav suggested that the test have to be replaced by computer-based test, the question papers to be digitally locked, the need for private service providers to be reduced and that the tests be subjected to mandatory cybersecurity audit. It seems that the NTA has put into place only a part of these recommendations — a fault the Supreme Court had recently publicized. In May, 2026, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan announced the change of NEET exam from offline to computer-based mode from the next academic year. In a welcome but late development, this was announced.

It is clear that the law in India and its approach to examine fraud is following a doctrinal trajectory. In Re: AIPMT (2015) Supreme Court (Tanvi Sarwal v. Cent. Bd. of Secondary Educ., (2015) 6 S.C.C. 573) established the earliest precedent, when it cancelled the All India Pre-Medical Test after answer keys were leaked across 10 different states through criminal networks employing various micro-SIM cards and Bluetooth devices to send answers within examination halls, declaring that if a national examination is being conducted in a manner which is systemic and widespread geographically but is done through malpractice then it can be cancelled. A decade later in Vanshika Yadav v. Union of India (2024)( Vanshika Yadav v. Union of India, (2024) 9 SCC 743), the Supreme Court further elaborated this principle with a test of proportionality: Cancellation of a national examination would be justified only if “the sanctity of the examination is violated at a systemic level and it is not possible to distinguish between tainted candidates and untainted candidates” on the facts of the 2024 leak of the NEET-UG , the bench of CJI DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala, and Justice Manoj Mishra noted serious administrative failures and set out eight benchmarks for the NTA.

Conclusion

What is being sought by the petitions for 2026 is the reconstitution of the NTA through a law passed by the Parliament, taking replacement of a limitedly accountable society with a statutory body that is accountable to the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), the Parliament and has legally binding and binding transparency requirements. The control of the professional destiny of millions of young Indians, every year, is at stake with the system. The accountability gap is not a by-product of the crisis – it is institutional precondition.

India is facing an overall integrity issue in exams which is actually a trust issue for the institutions. Examination is a path that provide opportunity for the society having extreme inequality by offering its youth a future determined not by money or access or proximity to the criminal networks, but by merit. If this mechanism is offered to the highest bidder, it’s not just a crime. It’s an unfaithfulness to the Constitution. Now the law has started to act. Now in 2026 the question before the courts and the legislature is whether the response will be proportionate to the size of the failure that they are asked to correct. As today’s youth are not just fighting for education but for justice as well.

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