NTA clarifies that viral allegation of NEET OMR sheet swap, amplified by Congress party, used AI-generated image, rejects claim of mix-up

The National Testing Agency (NTA) has firmly denied allegations circulating on social media regarding a supposed interchange of OMR answer sheets during the NEET-UG 2026 re-examination, asserting that the viral image is a digitally altered or AI-generated fabrication rather than an official record.

The controversy centres on candidate Avaneesh Srivastava, who appeared for the re-exam held on 21 June 2026. According to claims made by his family, which was amplified by the Congress party, the OMR sheet provided by NTA did not match the candidate and instead it had the details of another student named Ajeet Singh, son of Lakhan Singh and Reena Singh. This led to accusations of a mix-up in evaluation, sparking outrage among aspirants and families already concerned about the integrity of the examination process following the cancellation of the original test due to paper leak issues.

The allegations suggested that Avaneesh Srivastava’s evaluation was based on the exam of a different candidate. Congress party posted a video of Srivastava’s father making the allegations, calling it “Scam in Re-NEET too after the NEET paper leak!” They added in the post on X, “A father is recounting how his child took the Re-NEET exam, but now even the OMR sheet has been changed. According to the father— the OMR sheet given to their son Avnish Shrivastava by the NTA belongs to some Ajit Singh. Just imagine… what that child must be going through, having been deceived like this? It’s clear— NTA is proving to be a failure at every level, but the shamelessness is such that Dharmendra Pradhan, responsible for all this, is clinging to his chair.”

In response to the allegations, NTA has clarified that the image being circulated is not the OMR sheet of Avaneesh Srivastava on record with the agency. A forensic examination revealed it to be a digitally altered version of the genuine sheet, with only the identity fields modified. The discrepancies pointed out by the agency include wrong serial numbers, spelling mistakes in the instructions (such as “Roll Ne” instead of “Roll No.”, “correctly Nilled” instead of “correctly filled”, and garbled phrases like “partic alam”, “signaroen”, and “OFFICF Copy” and “hureby desloxa”. It also has incorrect field labels and anomalous question numbering.

The agency said such errors are consistent with AI based document regeneration, where software generates meaningless text.

Notably, NTA made it clear that the OMR sheet belonged to Avaneesh, but the details were changed. It clarified that the name “Ajeet Singh, son of Shri Lakhan Singh and Smt. Reena Singh” does not correspond to any registered candidate in the NEET-UG 2026 database.

“A search of the full candidate database returned no match. There has been no mix-up of answer sheets because no such second candidate exists,” the agency said.

The agency noted that the test booklet number, barcode, code, and shading pattern across all 180 answers in the viral image match those on the genuine OMR sheet of Avaneesh Srivastava. This makes a mix-up between two candidates impossible, as no two candidates can have the same barcode and booklet number. The genuine sheet carries the correct name, parents’ names, signature, and thumb impression, and was evaluated as per the standard process. The result declared on 16 July stands based on the candidate’s own authentic OMR, NTA clarified.  

NTA also stated that the circulated image was nearly six times the resolution of the institutional scan, the answer markings had shifted from black to blue-purple, and the thumb impression appeared as a saturated colour block lacking natural ridge detail.

“This is not a case of a mix-up between two candidates’ answer sheets. It is a case of a fabricated image being presented as if it were an official NTA record,” the agency made it clear. NTA added that the representation submitted by the candidate’s family had been examined on merit, a written response along with a copy of the genuine OMR sheet had been shared with the family, and “the result stands as declared because it is based on the candidate’s own genuine OMR sheet.”

Yesterday, NTA said that it is monitoring and scrutinising all such complaints, and found that many OMR sheets submitted for scrutiny turned out to be fake/AI-generated. The agency has advised students and parents to submit only original OMR sheets for scrutiny, warning that fake or AI-generated documents could invite legal action.

Written by OpIndia Staff
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