Court allowed NEET paper leak accused to take June 21 retest, but NTA withholds his result

3 min readNew DelhiUpdated: Jul 17, 2026 04:51 PM IST

A poster outside his school, had Yadav's photograph, with “MBBS selection” written next to it. (Express photo)

The National Testing Agency (NTA) has withheld the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test-Undergraduate (NEET-UG) result of Yash Yadav, an accused in the leak of the medical entrance examination question paper, The Indian Express has learned.

The NTA, which conducts the competitive exam, had announced on May 12 that the 2026 NEET-UG, which was held on May 3, was cancelled because of the leak.

A re-examination was held on June 21, the result of which was announced on Thursday (July 16).

Yash Yadav was arrested on May 13. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is investigating the case, alleged that Yadav had received PDF files of the leaked question papers through the secure messaging application Telegram, and sold them for Rs 10 lakh.

Investigators alleged that Yadav, who had himself appeared for the May 3 exam, was instrumental in distributing the “leaked” paper. More than 22.7 lakh aspirants had appeared for the May 3 exam.

On June 16, a Delhi court had allowed Yadav to appear for the retest on June 21, saying the allegations against him could not be grounds to deny him the right to take the examination.

“…While the applicant (Yadav) does face grave allegations of wrongful dissemination and trading of confidential questions of the very examination in which he now seeks to appear, his rights as a student cannot be defeated by turning bail into punishment by denial of the opportunity to appear in the examination,” Special Judge Dr Vishal Gogne of Rouse Avenue Court said in his order of June 16.

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This was “more so when the eligibility, candidature and selection of any student in an examination is subject to appropriate orders from the competent authorities/ exam conducting body,” the court said. “In this view, the court finds the applicant to be entitled to appear for the examination on 21.06.2026.”

Twenty-year-old Yadav is a resident of Gurgaon and a student at Uttarakhand Ayurved University in Dehradun. He had sought interim bail citing the NEET retest and the wedding of his sister.

While the court allowed Yadav to take the retest, it did not grant him interim bail. “…Considering the initial stage of the investigation, the wide sweep of the material and evidence sought to be collected and the prospect of other suspects being still investigated, the court is not inclined to grant interim bail to facilitate such participation,” the court said.

Yadav took the June 21 exam and attended his sister’s wedding the next day while in judicial custody.

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Nirbhay Thakur is a Senior Correspondent with The Indian Express who primarily covers district courts in Delhi and has reported on the trials of many high-profile cases since 2023.

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