NEET paper leak to CBSE OSM row: Full timeline leading to Pradhan's resignation

From a leaked NEET-UG paper to the chaos surrounding the CBSE OSM marking system, Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan fromally took responsibility twice in one year before resigning on July 25. Here is the full timeline of how it all unfolded.

In Short

• Pradhan took responsibility formally twice this year, first for the NEET leak, then for CBSE OSM row
• CBSE On-Screen Marking system left thousands of students with blurred, missing answers
• Weeks of protests by CJP at Jantar Mantar ended in his resignation letter to PM Modi on July 25

Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation didn't happen over one bad headline. He lost it over an entire year of them. What started as a leaked exam paper in May turned into a second scandal over blurred answer sheets in late May and June, and by July the pressure had built into one of the biggest protest movements of Modi's third term.

Two controversies, multiple public statements taking responsibility, and one resignation letter later, here's how the year actually unfolded.

FEBRUARY, THE QUIET SETUP

On February 9, CBSE issued a routine-looking circular. Class 12 answer sheets would now be evaluated digitally instead of shipped to regional centres on paper.

Nobody paid much attention. It would matter enormously in three months.

MAY 3, THE NEET LEAK

The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for medical admissions was compromised. Irregularities surfaced fast enough that the government couldn't sit on them.

The exam got cancelled, the CBI took over the investigation, and a fresh date got announced later.
For a ministry that oversees more than two million NEET aspirants a year, this was the kind of failure that doesn't stay contained.

MAY 13, CBSE RESULTS AND THE FIRST CRACKS

Class 12 results came out under the new On-Screen Marking system, and students started reporting blurred scans, missing pages, mismatched sheets, and answers that simply weren't marked.

One 18-year-old flagged irregularities in the OSM tender on social media and got called anti-national and worse by online trolls, including a Doordarshan anchor who later gave a half-hearted apology.

The backlash over how CBSE handled the complaint became its own separate scandal on top of the marking errors.

LATE MAY, PRADHAN'S FIRST RESPONSE

On May 15, Pradhan said the government was taking responsibility for the NEET leak and acknowledged a "breach in the chain of command".

By May 28, he chaired a review meeting at CBSE headquarters with the School Education Secretary, the CBSE chairperson, and directors from IIT Madras and IIT Kanpur in the room.

"I take responsibility," he told reporters. "It will be fixed."

The re-evaluation portal was supposed to open May 29. It didn't. It missed a second deadline on June 1. When it finally opened on June 2, students couldn't even complete payments on it.

JUNE, NEET COMES BACK AROUND

While CBSE was still unravelling, the rescheduled NEET-UG exam went ahead on June 21 for more than twenty lakh students, coordinated through what officials called a whole-of-government approach with state administrations.

It ran without major incident, a rare win in an otherwise brutal stretch.

On June 24, Pradhan again said, in a long interview, "Whatever happened should not have happened, and I hold myself responsible and answerable."

JULY 16, RESULTS AND RISING ANGER

NEET-UG results landed, and they were solid, with plenty of students from modest backgrounds cracking it. But the goodwill didn't last.

A youth movement calling itself the Cockroach Janta Party had been building since the leak, and by mid-July it had turned into sustained protests camped at Jantar Mantar, pulling in opposition parties and student unions nationwide.

JULY 20, THE TURNING POINT

By July 20, the CJP campaign had swelled into a massive Chalo Sansad march from Jantar Mantar, drawing a huge crowd before police and rapid action force personnel moved in with batons and tear gas. Over a hundred people were hurt.

After the alleged police brutality on the protests, most of whom were young students, what had been a persistent but manageable protest became the loudest public challenge the Modi government had faced in this term.

Calls for Dharmendra Pradhan's resignation stopped being a slogan and started being the biggest demand that mattered.

JULY 25, THE LETTER

Pradhan sent his resignation to the Prime Minister and posted it on X the same afternoon. In it, he took responsibility, thanked Modi for the opportunity to serve, and framed the decision as protecting students from getting caught in legal complications.

Two apologies and five months after that quiet February circular, the year finally caught up with him.

- Ends