Digvijaya Singh, chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on education, has sought a white paper from the government detailing the instances of paper leaks in National Testing Agency-conducted exams in the past eight years and the action taken on them.

In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Singh demanded that the white paper include the number of paper leaks, the status of cases and the persons convicted or acquitted.

Last month, the medical entrance exam NEET-UG, conducted by the NTA, was cancelled because of a paper leak. In 2024, allegations of a paper leak severely disrupted the exam. The National Eligibility Test was cancelled in 2024 following inputs that its integrity might have been compromised. In 2021, the CBI was tasked with
probing a paper leak in the JEE Main.

“At a time when the cancellation of the NEET-UG 2026 examination has wreaked havoc on the mental health of lakhs of students, one critical stressor for them has been the lack of clarity on how previous paper leaks, etc, have been investigated. There is presently no consolidated public record of cases relating to paper leaks and how they are being prosecuted by the CBI and other investigative agencies...,” Singh wrote.

He said the main accused in the NEET-UG 2024 paper leak case in Hazaribagh, Sanjeev Kumar alias Mukhiya, was out on bail. The CBI has filed a closure report stating that no irregularities occurred in the 2024 UGC-NET exam. The court has asked for a written explanation for the closure.

“To inspire renewed confidence in the administration’s ability and willingness to deliver justice to India’s students, I therefore propose that the Government of India issue a white paper documenting the list of instances of paper leaks and/or irregularities which have occurred in NTA-conducted examinations in the last eight years, action taken by the NTA and the investigative agencies, including who was arrested by them, for each of these examinations,” Singh wrote.

He demanded that the white paper mention the status of each investigation — whether it was ongoing or completed, and if a chargesheet or closure report had been filed by the investigative agency — along with a status report on each accused.

DMK Rajya Sabha member P. Wilson told The Telegraph that none of the accused in the paper leak cases had been convicted.

Replying to his question in the Rajya Sabha on December 4, 2024, education minister Dharmendra Pradhan had said the CBI had filed five chargesheets in the NEET-UG 2024 paper theft case against 45 accused.

The government passed the Public Examination Prevention of Unfair Means Bill in Parliament in February 2024 to deal with paper leaks, but the law and the rules were notified after four months. “If the government had been serious, it should have notified the law immediately after it was passed in Parliament,” Wilson said.