NEW DELHI: A viral video that circulated on Sunday, the day of the NEET-UG 2026 re-examination, alleging that the examination paper had leaked on Telegram a day earlier (Saturday), was established as fake by both the Fact Check Unit of the Press Information Bureau (PIB) and the National Testing Agency (NTA) on Sunday night.
Referring to the incident, NTA Director General Abhishek Singh said the agency now stands vindicated in its position that Telegram needed to be banned to ensure the smooth and fair conduct of the medical entrance examination.
Acting on the NTA’s recommendations, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) on June 16 announced a temporary restriction on the use of Telegram in India until June 22, a day after the NEET-UG examination, under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000. It also directed the platform to disable its message-editing feature until June 30.
Singh said, “There has been absolutely no leak during the June 21 exam. However, fake news keeps getting shared countless times. Hence, in hindsight, we did take a very correct decision with regard to Telegram.”
The DG also said that the agency was preparing to release the NEET-UG results at the earliest.
CUET results to be out on Tuesday
Singh also told this newspaper that the results of the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) would be made public on Tuesday.
A total of 15,69,867 candidates took the examination over a period of 19 days, beginning on May 11 and continuing until June 7. Its scores are accepted by more than 250 universities for admission to undergraduate programmes. The examination ran into controversy after 3,765 candidates were unable to appear due to technical glitches and had to take the test at a later date.
With the government recently announcing that the pen-and-paper format for NEET-UG would be discontinued from 2027, Singh said the agency would next focus on ensuring the smooth conduct of the Computer-Based Test (CBT).
When pressed for exact data on the recently concluded NEET-UG examination, the official said, “The exact number of candidates who actually took up the exam out of the 22.78 lakh who had registered for it will be released after collating the inputs from across the country and abroad, he said. Like we stated, the rough estimate is over 20 lakh candidates. Exact data on all aspects pertaining to the exam will be made public soon.”
Stating that the government had gone out of its way to ensure that every candidate had the opportunity to take the crucial test, he said 81 candidates who had suffered injuries or health problems were able to appear for the examination due to special arrangements made by the NTA.
Nearly 10,000 persons with disabilities also appeared for the examination, Singh said.