The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice asking the National Testing Agency to respond to a batch of petitions on the alleged paper leak in the 2026 undergraduate National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for medical college seats, adding that no lessons seemed to have been learnt from the past, Bar and Bench reported.The agency, which conducts the exam for admission to undergraduate medical courses in India, on May 12 cancelled the test following allegations of a paper leak. More than 22 lakh candidates had appeared for the test that was conducted on May 3.Similar allegations of paper leaks and irregular grace marks had emerged during the 2024 undergraduate National Eligibility cum Entrance Test.“It is sad that they have not learnt their lesson,” Bar and Bench quoted a bench of Justices PS Narasimha and Alok Aradhe as saying. “We passed an order [after the alleged paper leak in 2024]. A committee was formed. It made recommendations, it was accepted…”Petitions filed in courtIn the court, several petitions were filed after the National Testing Agency cancelled the test.One of the petitions was filed by the Federation of All India Medical Association. It has sought directions to “replace or fundamentally restructure” the National Testing Agency with a “more robust, technologically advanced and autonomous” body.The Federation of All India Medical Association also sought the appointment of a high-powered monitoring committee chaired by a retired judge, along with a cybersecurity expert and a forensic scientist, to supervise the re-exam until a new independent body is formed.The national body representing doctors and medical students sought directions for the digital locking of question papers and a transition to a computer-based test model to eliminate the physical chain-of-custody risks.Another petition filed by the United Doctors Front sought the dissolution of the National Testing Agency in its present form, Bar and Bench reported. The petition noted that the agency, being a society registered under the 1860 Societies Registration Act, lacked direct parliamentary accountability and acts in what it described as an “accountability vacuum”.It sought a direction to the Union government to establish a statutory national testing authority through an Act of Parliament, the legal news portal reported.A separate petition has also been filed by Rashtriya Janata Dal MP Sudhakar Singh, social activist Anubhav Garg, Indian Medical Association member Dhruv Chauhan and political leader Harisharan Devgan, according to Bar and Bench.Their petition also seeks an immediate transition of the exam, including the one on June 21, to a computer-based test. Additionally, the petition sought the replacement of the National Testing Agency with a new independent authority having statutory accountability, judicial oversight and technological safeguards.The hearingAfter the allegations in 2024, a high-level committee, led by former Indian Space Research Organisation Chairperson K Radhakrishnan, had been formed. The committee had reportedly submitted 95 recommendations to reform the process.On Monday, the court sought a status report from the National Testing Agency on the steps it had taken as per the recommendations of the committee, Live Law reported. It then listed the matter for Friday.The test on May 3 had to be cancelled after the Rajasthan Special Operations Group began investigating allegations that a “guess paper” circulated before the examination contained questions closely matching the actual paper.The “guess paper” contained around 410 questions, of which about 120 matched the questions asked in the chemistry section, according to the Rajasthan Police. The Central Bureau of Investigation filed a first information report in the matter based on a complaint by the Union education ministry.On May 15, the National Testing Agency said that the re-exam for the 2026 NEET-UG would be held on June 21. On the same day, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said that the exam will be computer-based from next year.On Saturday, the Union education ministry said that the CBI had arrested a Pune-based botany teacher in connection with the alleged paper leak. Nine persons have been arrested from Delhi, Jaipur, Gurugram, Nashik, Pune and Ahilyanagar in the case so far.Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.