Shift to computer-based NEET-UG under ‘active consideration’: Centre

1. At a Glance

• Centre told the Supreme Court that shifting NEET-UG from pen-paper to computer-based test (CBT) mode is under "active consideration," ahead of NEET-UG 2027 [1].
• Trigger: the NEET-UG 2026 paper leak, which forced cancellation/scarred nearly 23 lakh registered candidates' exam [1].
• Tests UPSC aspirants on: governance of examination bodies, NTA institutional reform, judicial oversight of executive functioning, and tech-in-governance (digitisation of exams).
• High-Powered Task Force under Nandan Nilekani (Infosys co-founder) is central to the reform process [1].

2. Why in the News

• On Friday (18 September 2026), Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta, representing the Centre/NTA, told a Supreme Court Bench of Justices P.S. Narasimha and Alok Aradhe that a switch to CBT mode was "under active consideration" and "something will have to be done" given NEET-UG 2027 was approaching [1].
• The plea arose from petitioners (Federation of All India Medical Association, United Doctors Front) demanding clarity on the exam mode for NEET-UG 2027 and structural reforms in NTA [1][2].
• Court directed the Nilekani task force to file an affidavit within two weeks [1].
• Justice Narasimha observed reforms would take "about a year to become entrenched," citing filling of posts, specialised personnel, infrastructure, digitisation, and transition from written to digital exam [1].
• SC also indicated it may visit NTA's permanent office at Minto Road, New Delhi, to inspect functioning [2].

3. Background & Evolution

• NEET-UG: single national entrance test for MBBS/BDS admissions, conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA).
• NTA was established to conduct entrance examinations for higher educational institutions, starting with UGC-NET in December 2017 [S1-adjacent PIB reference].
• NEET-UG 2024: marred by "serious lapses" per Supreme Court findings; SC closed the case after Centre assured implementation of expert-panel-recommended reforms [2].
• NEET-UG 2026: exam held 3 May 2026, cancelled/scarred following fresh paper-leak allegations, with nearly 23 lakh candidates having registered [1][2].
• July 2026: Centre constituted the High-Powered Task Force headed by Nandan Nilekani to recommend measures for a leak-proof, technology-driven examination system [1].
• Current stage (September 2026): Task force nearing submission of its first interim report by end-September 2026; SC pressing for CBT decision before NEET-UG 2027 [1][2].

4. Core Static Facts

5. Multi-Dimensional Analysis

Administrative

• SC recommends NTA have structural stability through permanent offices and that half its workforce be permanent employees, rejecting reliance on deputation [1][2].
• Justice Narasimha flagged multi-year implementation lag: post-filling, specialised verticals, infrastructure, digitisation — "about a year to become entrenched" [1].
• CBT rollout for a 23-lakh-candidate exam poses massive logistics: computer terminals, multi-shift scheduling, standardisation/normalisation of difficulty across shifts (as in JEE Main/CAT models).

Legal/Constitutional

• Matter proceeds under SC's continuing mandamus/monitoring jurisdiction over NTA following NEET-UG 2024 lapses [2].
• Ties to the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024, and its 2026 amendment Bill tracked by PRS, aimed at curbing paper leaks/cheating in public exams [1].
• Judicial oversight exemplifies separation-of-powers tension: courts nudging executive on operational/administrative exam design (mode of test), while government retains policy discretion.

Scientific/Technological

• Shift to CBT requires digitisation of examination infrastructure — secure servers, encrypted question banks, biometric verification, real-time proctoring — reducing physical paper-leak vulnerability.
• Nilekani's tech-governance background (Aadhaar, TAGUP report to Finance Ministry) [3] signals a UID/digital-public-infrastructure approach to fixing exam integrity.

Governance/Ethical

• Repeated paper leaks (2024, 2026) highlight institutional accountability deficits in a single-agency, high-stakes exam model affecting medical education access nationwide.
• Debate over permanent vs deputed staffing reflects a broader civil-service governance issue: institutional memory vs. flexibility.

Social

• NEET-UG's disruption directly affects lakhs of aspiring medical students; delays/uncertainty over exam mode for NEET-UG 2027 has direct bearing on equitable access, especially for rural/low-connectivity candidates who may lack CBT familiarity (digital divide concern, akin to JEE Main CBT critiques).

6. Recent Developments (last 12–18 months)

• 3 May 2026: NEET-UG 2026 conducted; subsequently scarred by paper-leak controversy [1].
• July 2026: Centre constitutes High-Powered Task Force under Nandan Nilekani for leak-proof, tech-driven exam reforms [1].
• 18 September 2026: SC hearing — SG Tushar Mehta states CBT shift "under active consideration"; Bench (Narasimha & Aradhe JJ.) directs Nilekani task force to file affidavit within two weeks; SC signals possible visit to NTA's Minto Road office [1][2].
• Expected end-September 2026: Nilekani task force's first interim report due [1][2].
• Ongoing: Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Amendment Bill, 2026 under legislative tracking [1].

7. Prelims Hooks

• NEET-UG is conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA), not UGC or CBSE.
• NTA's establishment began with conducting UGC-NET from December (its first exam cycle).
• The High-Powered Task Force on exam reforms is chaired by Nandan Nilekani, co-founder of Infosys.
• Nandan Nilekani also headed the earlier TAGUP (Technology Advisory Group for Unique Projects), submitting its report to the Finance Ministry.
• NEET-UG 2026 exam was held on 3 May 2026; nearly 23 lakh students had registered.
• The SC Bench hearing the NEET matter comprises Justices P.S. Narasimha and Alok Aradhe.
• Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta represented the Centre and NTA in this hearing.
• SC has asked for half of NTA's workforce to be permanent employees, not deputationists.
• NTA's headquarters/permanent office referenced in the case is at Minto Road, New Delhi.
• NEET-UG 2024 was earlier flagged by SC for "serious lapses"; case closed on Centre's assurance of reform.
• Petitioners in the current case include the Federation of All India Medical Association and United Doctors Front.
• The Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act deals with curbing malpractice in recruitment/entrance exams; a 2026 Amendment Bill is under PRS tracking.
• CBT (computer-based test) shift is being considered starting NEET-UG 2027, not 2026.

8. This Exact Fix Was Already Ordered in 2024, and the Leak Still Happened

• A panel already told the government to move to computers — two years ago
• After the UGC-NET paper was found on the darknet in June 2024, the Ministry of Education set up a High-Level Committee of Experts on exam reform [5].

• It was headed by Dr K. Radhakrishnan, former ISRO chairman, and gave 101 recommendations — including moving high-stakes exams like NEET to CBT, biometric and AI-based checking of a candidate's identity, and encrypted delivery of question papers [4].

• The government said the fix was mostly done — then the paper leaked again

• In May 2026 Dr Radhakrishnan told the Supreme Court that most of the 101 recommendations were already implemented or were being implemented [4].
• The NEET-UG 2026 paper still leaked, and the exam of nearly 23 lakh registered candidates was hit [1].

• The same month, the Supreme Court pulled up NTA and said it had not learnt its lesson [8].

• So the real question for an answer sheet is not "CBT or paper"

• A recommendation being "accepted" is not the same as it working on the ground.
• Use this as your example of the gap between a reform on paper and a reform in practice.

9. Going Digital Moves the Leak Risk, It Does Not Delete It

• A leak needs an insider, and computers still need insiders
• The Education Minister said the OMR system (the paper sheet where you darken bubbles with a pen) is the root cause, so the exam would become CBT [6].
• But a CBT still needs a question bank, people who build it, and staff at each centre. The paper is gone; the people are not.

• The Radhakrishnan panel itself asked for encrypted question-paper delivery and a separate technology and security division inside NTA — proof that going digital creates its own new points of failure [4].

• The panel did not even claim full CBT is possible everywhere

• It said use online mode "wherever feasible", and where full online testing is not practical, use a hybrid model: the paper is sent to the centre digitally, but the candidate still answers on paper [4].
• That fallback is an admission that thousands of centres across India cannot yet seat lakhs of candidates at working computers.

• A hybrid exam keeps a physical answer trail, so it does not remove the OMR weakness the Minister named [6].

• The court has already refused to treat CBT as a quick switch

• When asked to hold the NEET-UG re-test itself in CBT mode, the Supreme Court refused [7].
• Justice Narasimha said reforms would take about a year to settle in — posts to fill, trained people, infrastructure, digitisation [1].

10. Why One Exam Becomes Many Papers, and Marks Stop Being Comparable

• Not enough computers means not everyone sits together
• The Radhakrishnan panel recommended conducting exams in multiple sessions [4].
• With about 23 lakh registrations, a CBT cannot be one single sitting [1]. It becomes many shifts over many days.

• Each shift must get a different question paper, or the first shift simply tells the next what came.

• Different papers mean the raw marks are not equal

• If Shift A's paper is slightly easier than Shift B's, the same ability gives different marks.
• So the agency uses normalisation — a statistical formula that converts raw marks of each shift onto a common scale, as done in JEE Main.

• For NEET, where one mark can decide an MBBS seat, a candidate now loses or wins on a formula, not only on answers. That is a new ground for court cases every year.

• The candidate who has never used a mouse pays the price

• The panel's own "wherever feasible" wording shows access to computers is uneven across the country [4].
• A rural candidate who has practised only on OMR sheets faces a second exam — learning the software — on top of the medical syllabus.

11. The Strongest Argument For CBT, and Where It Actually Holds

• Be fair to the other side: the paper itself is the biggest hole
• A printed paper must be printed, boxed, trucked, stored in a bank locker, and opened at lakhs of desks. Every one of those steps is a chance to photograph it.
• A CBT paper can stay encrypted until the exam clock starts [4]. That is a genuine, large reduction in the number of people who can touch the paper before the exam.

• This is why the Minister called OMR the root cause [6].

• Where the argument holds

• CBT plus biometric authentication and AI-based identity checks attacks impersonation — the "dummy candidate" problem — which paper mode cannot fix at all [4].

• Where it does not hold

• It fixes the transport of the paper. It does not fix who inside the agency sets and stores the questions.
• The Supreme Court is asking for structural fixes — permanent offices and half the workforce as permanent staff — precisely because the weakness is people and institutions, not only the medium [1][2].

12. What Must Be Fixed First, and Who Has to Do It

• NTA should finish the staffing reform before touching the exam mode
• The Radhakrishnan panel asked NTA to hire more permanent staff instead of depending mostly on contract or deputed people [4]; the Supreme Court has said half the workforce should be permanent [1][2].

• Why this order matters: a person on deputation goes back to a parent department, so nobody carries the blame or the learning to the next exam cycle.

• The Nilekani task force should publish a trial plan, not only a recommendation

• The court has already ordered the task force to file an affidavit within two weeks, with its first interim report due end-September 2026 [1][2].
• The useful content of that affidavit is a counted one: how many computer terminals exist, in how many districts, and how many shifts a 23-lakh CBT needs [1].

• Follow the Radhakrishnan precedent in reverse — that panel's ideas were called implemented, yet 2026 leaked [4][8]. So ask for a verified trial run, not an assurance.

• Use the hybrid step as the tested middle path

• The panel's own hybrid design — digital delivery of the paper to the centre, answers on paper — removes the truck and the locker while not needing a computer for every candidate [4].

• It can be run first in districts that lack terminals, so the 2027 batch is not the test group for untested infrastructure.

• Parliament's part is the law, and the law needs teeth on insiders

• The Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act and its 2026 Amendment Bill target unfair means in public exams [1].
• A leak in CBT mode will come from people with authorised access, so the punishment provisions must clearly cover agency and vendor staff, not only candidates and touts.

13. Anchors for Answers

• Data: ~23 lakh candidates registered for NEET-UG 2026, the exam hit by the leak [1]
• Data: 101 recommendations given by the Radhakrishnan panel on exam reform, data security and NTA restructuring [4]
• Report/Committee: High-Level Committee of Experts, Ministry of Education, 2024, chaired by Dr K. Radhakrishnan, former ISRO chairman [5][4]
• Report/Committee: High-Powered Task Force, 2026, chaired by Nandan Nilekani; first interim report due end-September 2026 [1]
• Law/Case: Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, and the 2026 Amendment Bill [1]
• Law/Case: Supreme Court refused to hold the NEET-UG re-test in CBT mode, 2026 [7]; earlier found "serious lapses" in NEET-UG 2024 [2]
• Comparison: JEE Main already runs as a multi-shift CBT and uses normalisation to compare marks across shifts — the model NEET would copy, and the fairness disputes it would inherit
• Scheme: Radhakrishnan panel's hybrid mode — question paper sent digitally to the centre, answers written on paper — as the fallback where full CBT is not practical [4]

14. Mains Relevance

• GS-II: Governance — transparency and accountability of examination bodies; statutory/regulatory bodies; issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services (Education); judiciary's role in policy oversight.
• GS-II: Polity — Judiciary's expanding role in institutional design (separation of powers).
• GS-III: Science & Technology — application of digital infrastructure/technology in governance (e-governance, secure digital examination systems).
• Possible Mains stems: 1. Discuss the institutional and technological reforms needed to prevent recurring examination malpractices in agencies like the NTA. Evaluate the role of judicial intervention in enforcing such reforms. (GS-II) 2. Examine the challenges and opportunities in shifting large-scale national entrance examinations from paper-based to computer-based formats in India. (GS-III) 3. 'Institutional accountability, not ad-hoc fixes, is the answer to recurring public examination failures.' Critically analyze in the context of the NTA and NEET-UG. (GS-II)

15. Related Topics to Study Next

• National Testing Agency (NTA) — structure and mandate — core institutional body under scrutiny; foundational for this topic.
• Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024/2026 Amendment — statutory framework directly addressing paper leaks.
• UPSC's own CBT/exam integrity mechanisms — comparative angle for aspirants' own exam.
• Aadhaar and Digital Public Infrastructure (Nilekani's earlier work, TAGUP) — tech-governance linkage.
• Judicial review and PIL jurisprudence on executive functioning — legal/constitutional angle.
• Right to Education and access to professional education (medical seats, NEET counselling) — social equity angle.
• JEE Main CBT model — existing precedent for large-scale computer-based entrance testing in India.
• Federalism in education policy — since state medical admissions also hinge on NEET, Centre-State coordination issues.

16. Common Errors / Trap Areas

• Confusing NTA with UGC or CBSE as the conducting body for NEET-UG — NTA is the correct agency.
• Assuming CBT shift has been finalised — as of the news, it is only "under active consideration," not confirmed policy.
• Mixing up NEET-UG 2024 lapses case (closed) with the ongoing NEET-UG 2026 case (ongoing, task force affidavit pending).
• Misattributing the task force chair — it is Nandan Nilekani, not a government official or judge.
• Assuming the CBT shift applies to NEET-UG 2026 — it is being considered for NEET-UG 2027.