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After NTA rejects OMR mismatch claims, NEET aspirant, father head to Delhi for sit-in protest
Arya Singh's father, Rakesh Singh, a former soldier from Kanpur, also appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to intervene in the matter.
After the National Testing Agency (NTA) rejected allegations that her NEET-UG 2026 re-examination result had been altered and termed the OMR sheet she circulated as "fabricated", UP-based candidate Arya Singh and her father, a former soldier, travelled to Delhi to stage a sit-in protest outside the agency's office.
This comes after the NTA issued a public notice rejecting allegations by several NEET-UG 2026 candidates that their results did not match their OMR answer sheets. The agency said the images being circulated on social media were "fabricated, digitally altered or AI-generated" and did not match its official records.
Speaking after leaving for Delhi, Arya's father, Rakesh Singh, said they were not satisfied with the NTA's response and would continue their protest until they received answers from the agency, Live Hindustan reported.
Asked whether they would move court, he said, "Everything will happen on time," indicating that legal action would be considered only after exhausting all other options.
Father appeals to PM Modi
Rakesh Singh, a former soldier from Uttar Pradesh's Kanpur, also appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to intervene in the matter.
"He should look into the injustice being done to students who work hard day and night. He should curb the arbitrariness of the NTA," he said.
Questioning the agency's findings, he said the NTA would have to explain "who made the OMR that it had sent" and "who corrected it after the objection and sent it back."
Arya Singh has alleged that her NEET-UG 2026 re-examination result was changed after it was announced. According to her, her score was initially 570 marks but was reduced to 167 a few hours later.
She claimed that when she sought a copy of her OMR sheet through registered post, she received one in which the number 77 was missing and the serial number 85 appeared twice. After she raised an objection, she alleged, the NTA sent a corrected OMR sheet reflecting a score of 609. She further claimed that when the re-examination results were declared on Thursday night, her score was shown as 570 before being revised to 167 on Friday morning.
Rejecting Arya's allegations and similar complaints by other candidates, the NTA said it had examined every representation on merit and found that the original OMR sheets in its possession matched the declared scores in every case reviewed.
The agency said genuine examination documents carry unique barcodes, booklet and answer-sheet numbers, and QR codes linked to its secure records. It maintained that the declared scores matched the official answer key and calculation sheet.
"The OMR sheets submitted by the complainants are not the OMR answer sheets issued by the Agency but fabricated documents," the NTA said, adding that this conclusion was reached after a "forensic and record-based examination."
The controversy relates to the NEET-UG 2026 re-examination held on June 21 after the NTA cancelled the original May 3 examination following allegations of a paper leak. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is investigating the alleged leak, has arrested 13 people in the case and is expected to file a chargesheet later this month.
