New Delhi: The National Testing Agency (NTA) on Saturday issued a warning to students and their guardians against submitting forged or AI-generated Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) sheets as part of grievance petitions, saying such actions could lead to legal proceedings.
The agency said it was scrutinising incoming complaints after discovering that several OMR sheets provided for verification had been fabricated.
In a statement, the NTA cautioned: “In the wake of many OMR sheets submitted for scrutiny turning out to be fake/AI generated, students and parents are advised to submit only original OMRs for scrutiny. Any fake / AI generated OMR may invite legal action against the complainant.”
This follows accusations from the Congress that the NTA tampered with a candidate’s OMR during the NEET-UG 2026 re-examination.
The Congress alleged Avneesh Srivastava’s OMR had been swapped with another candidate’s — identified as Ajit Singh — and backed the charge with a video statement from the student’s father while criticising Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
“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. Shame on them!” Congress tweeted.
Allegations Of Score Mismatches Across States
In Beed district of Maharashtra, multiple candidates said their official marks differed sharply from the totals they obtained using the final answer key, as reported by India Today.
The family of aspirant Soham Gavte said he expected 522 marks but was allotted only 95. Dnyaneshwari Pawar’s family alleged that the OMR sheet uploaded under her roll number was not the one she had filled. They said she had calculated 702 based on the final key, while her official scorecard showed just 87.
Those families have demanded a probe and warned they will pursue legal remedies if the anomalies are not rectified.
Similar complaints surfaced in Karnataka, where students reported that their scores and consequent ranks changed substantially from what they expected after cross-checking with the final answer key.
Vaishnavi Das said she lost 10 marks, which dropped her rank by nearly 2,000 places, while M. Suchita alleged a 25-mark reduction despite matching all her answers with the NTA’s final key.
Both have sought explanations from the agency, and aspirants broadly have pressed for greater transparency in the evaluation process.
