Screenshots of “correct” NEET answer sheets are doing the rounds on social media, and the National Testing Agency says none of them are real. The agency has put out a statement calling these images digitally altered copies of candidates’ own genuine OMR sheets. Passing them off as the true record, it warns, is a criminal offence.
Here’s what set this off. Some NEET (UG) 2026 candidates, or people posting on their behalf, have shared pictures of OMR answer sheets online, claiming they show the “correct” responses and that the results declared against those candidates are therefore wrong. NEET (UG) is the single entrance test for MBBS, BDS and other undergraduate medical courses in India, and it runs on OMR sheets, the bubble-marking answer sheets read by machine.
The NTA says it checks the records in every such case, and the picture is the same each time.
What the agency keeps on file for each candidate:
- The genuine OMR sheet carrying the correct Roll Number, Test Booklet Number, Answer Sheet barcode and serial, and Test Booklet Code.
- The candidate’s own name and parentage, written in the candidate’s own hand.
- Signatures and thumb impression of the candidate along with two invigilators.
That sheet was already sent to each candidate at their registered e-mail address and made available on the candidate portal, the NTA notes. The score declared, it adds, matches that OMR sheet, the official answer key notified for NEET (UG) 2026, and the calculation sheet on record. In its words, there is no evaluation error.
So where do the viral images come from? The NTA says they are not documents it issued at all. They are manipulated versions of the candidates’ real sheets. The tampering it has seen ranges from extra response markings being added to changes in names and even in the authenticated signature time of an invigilator.
The legal warning is blunt. Making, sending or circulating a forged or digitally altered OMR sheet is a cognisable offence under the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024. It also draws liability under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, and the Information Technology Act, 2000.
Got a real complaint about your result? The NTA says to follow the process laid out in its Public Notice, available on the agency’s website at https://neet.nta.nic.in. Don’t rely on anything floating around on social media.