The National Testing Agency (NTA) has issued a fresh advisory warning NEET-UG 2026 candidates against submitting a fake NEET OMR sheet while raising complaints about score discrepancies, cautioning that such conduct may invite legal action against the complainant. The advisory, issued on 18 July 2026, follows a review of scrutiny requests in which candidates flagged a gap between their expected and declared scores. The agency found that a significant number of the OMR sheets submitted with these complaints were fabricated or generated using artificial intelligence tools. NTA says it is closely monitoring and scrutinising all complaints and has urged students and parents to submit only original OMRs.
Why NTA Issued the Warning
The controversy comes at a sensitive time for this year’s medical entrance exam. NEET-UG 2026 results were declared on 16 July 2026, with 11.21 lakh candidates qualifying the test. The re-examination, held after the original May 3 attempt was cancelled over paper leak allegations, took place on 21 June 2026 across 5,440 centres in India and 14 overseas centres. With such a large candidate pool, gaps between a student’s self-assessed score and the official result are common, but the rise in submissions of a fake NEET OMR sheet this year prompted the formal caution.
The Fake NEET OMR Sheet Problem
Digitally altered or AI-generated documents are not isolated to score-gap complaints alone. In a related case in Indore, the Crime Branch arrested a first-year law student accused of running an online racket that sold fake, AI-generated NEET question papers to aspirants ahead of the exam. The misuse of AI tools to fabricate exam-related documents, officials note, is a growing concern across competitive exams, not just NEET. A fake NEET OMR sheet, once flagged during verification, is compared against the agency’s sealed original records, making detection straightforward for officials but legally risky for the candidate involved.
What Candidates Should Do Instead
Candidates who genuinely believe there is an error in their declared score should approach the scrutiny process using only their authentic OMR sheet, obtained through the official channel, rather than a recreated or edited version. Submitting a fake NEET OMR sheet does not strengthen a complaint; it can instead expose the candidate to scrutiny and possible legal consequences under the advisory.
