The NEET-UG examination was held on 3 May 2026 for about 22 lakh candidates. It was cancelled on 12 May after allegations that the paper had leaked, and a re-examination was held on 21 June. What followed was one of the largest student protest movements in recent years, led by the Cockroach Janata Party, which began an indefinite sit-in at Jantar Mantar on 20 June. The activist Sonam Wangchuk joined it with a hunger strike on 28 June.
The confrontation peaked in the third week of July. On 18 July Delhi Police removed Wangchuk from the protest site and hospitalised him. On 20 July a march to Parliament was stopped with lathis and tear gas; Delhi Police said more than 118 of its personnel were injured, and around sixty protesters were reported injured. Opposition parties stalled Parliament from 20 to 24 July. On 23 July the prime minister announced fast-track courts for paper-leak cases.
The political cost landed on 25 July, when Dharmendra Pradhan resigned as Union education minister. President Droupadi Murmu accepted the resignation on the prime minister’s advice with immediate effect. Pralhad Joshi, then holding consumer affairs, food and public distribution and new and renewable energy, was given additional charge of the education ministry — a dual-charge arrangement rather than a reshuffle. Pradhan said he took responsibility for the leak from the first day.
On 1 September a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant, with Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana, invoked Article 142 of the Constitution to quash the first information reports registered against protesters in Delhi, Bihar, West Bengal, Assam and Maharashtra, and barred fresh FIRs over the protests held between 20 and 25 July. Article 142 allows the court to pass any order necessary for complete justice; it is used sparingly, and using it to quash a set of FIRs is unusual.
The order was not a blanket amnesty. The court allowed Delhi Police to file a fresh and specific FIR against 2,873 individuals identified from the protest site as having criminal antecedents. It also directed the Centre to frame a national compensation policy for the families of students who died by suicide after the leak, with payments to be made within three months. The protest organisers called off a planned march on 5 September and withdrew the agitation, saying their demands had been accepted.
