Mumbai: When Pradeep Kumar Joshi’s name was recommended for the post of the Madhya Pradesh Public Service Commission (MPPSC) chairperson, an internal note was circulated by the MP Special Branch of the police, meant for the secretary to the chief minister, vetting his name.The Wire has reviewed a copy of the internal note, provided to Bhopal-based activist Ajay Dubey under the Right to Information Act. The note should have brought up any red flags.It listed out his then-employment status and plainly stated a truth: Joshi, a Jabalpur-based professor, had close links with top Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders Murli Manohar Joshi – news reports have called him his kin – as well as former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.As if that would suffice.It did. And days later, Joshi was sworn into the constitutional post of the MPPSC chairperson, in charge of conducting exams for all aspirants who want to enter into government service, a role he would later run into controversies for.The same man, Joshi, now heads the National Testing Agency (NTA), the agency which has been in charge of conducting leak-ridden competitive exams like the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET), whose leak in May sparked off massive protests and led to at least 12 aspirants taking their own lives.While Dharmendra Pradhan’s role as the education minister has received scrutiny, Joshi’s role seems to have evaded it.Joshi has had a charmed career. In the last 20 years, he has occupied plum positions of power across different BJP-ruled states as well as in New Delhi under the Modi government. In nearly every position, controversies have followed him in the form of paper leaks, irregularities and allegations of favouritism and incompetence.However, Joshi has emerged out of all of these unscathed. His profile has only risen through these controversies – from the MPPSC chairperson, to the chairperson of the Chhattisgarh Public Service Commission, to being promoted as a member, and later the chairperson, of the all-important Union Public Service Commission and now, the NTA chief under the Modi government.The Wire can count at least 13 instances of controversies, disruptions and even leaks that have marked his 20-year-long career. In his current role alone, Joshi has presided over at least 11 instances of leaks and disruptions in only three yearsRetired IAS officer Anil Swarup, who also served as education secretary, speaking on the ‘Wone’ podcast last week, questioned the lack of accountability around Joshi.“The reputation of any organisation, its credibility, depends upon who is leading it. No one is discussing who the NTA chairman is and what his antecedents are,” Swarup complained. “The 2024 paper leaked, nothing happened (to him). 2026 leaked, there is no discussion. You keep firing employees, but it is very important to see who is leading an organisation. Who you have appointed to lead an organisation is a political decision,” Swarup said.Scrutinising his record, The Wire found that Joshi’s tenures across all these posts saw multiple paper leaks, repeated irregularities, delays and controversies around the exams conducted by the organisations he helmed.In fact, it was under him that the NTA saw a dubious first – in its ten-year history, the NEET had never leaked, nor had it ever needed a re-test. Under Joshi, in May 2026, the NEET Undergraduate (UG) test had to be cancelled since the questions had leaked, and over two million aspirants were forced to take a re-test.This failure by the NTA, under Joshi, proved to be devastating for countless aspirants and their families who had slogged for years, pouring in resources and efforts to be able to give the exam their best shot.When the NTA announced a re-test, many aspirants couldn’t bear the thought of having to do it all over again. Sana Shaikh, a 19-year-old aspirant, had aced the NEET exams held on May 3, and had been thrilled with her outing. A day before the re-test, Shaikh took her own life at her Hyderabad home. She left behind a note, “I am sorry.”At least 11 other NEET aspirants took their own lives, between the original exam and the re-test.The protests – led by the Cockroach Janata Party – had an effect within the NTA. On July 25, news portals reported that the NTA had sacked 47 of its personnel, but the Modi government had neither officially confirmed these reports, nor had it divulged details of the names, ranks and the reasons behind their dismissal. Just recently, the NTA has floated a Rs 7.5 crore tender to hire a private security agency “to safeguard NTA personnel, visitors, assets, premises, confidential examination material, server rooms, strong rooms, warehouses, record rooms and other critical infrastructure housing sensitive examination records”, according to Hindustan Times.Such moves are unlikely to stem the rot within the NTA, experts said. Jawaharlal Nehru University professor of linguistics Ayesha Kidwai called the NTA a “completely opaque organisation”.“We have no knowledge of what happens within the NTA,” she said. “We don’t know who is conducting these exams,” she says, pointing to the outsourcing. “They fired these 47 people, but there is no inquiry, no listing of the charges.”While these officers have reportedly been sacked, Joshi’s role has faced no such scrutiny.A Right To Information query filed by Suchak Patel for The Quint revealed that the NTA under Joshi has suffered from multiple institutional challenges. These include a vacancy rate of 38% for NTA staff, which rises to 70% for senior directorial roles, as well as a refusal to consult its Governing Board, despite its repeated failures. The RTI revealed the board had met just twice between January 2024 and June 2026.The Wire tried to get in touch with Joshi as well as the Union Ministry of Education through repeated emails, but they did not elicit any response.§Here is a list of the 13 instances of controversies and disruptions, coinciding with Joshi’s tenures.1. NEET 2026 Leak: More than 2.2 million NEET-UG aspirants appeared for the exam on May 3 this year, but it soon emerged that the paper had been leaked, with ‘guess papers’ circulated on WhatsApp showing substantial similarities with the final exam paper. A CBI probe found a nation-wide racket that involved academics who were linked to the NTA, being responsible for the leak. Aspirants were forced to appear for a re-test a month later, on June 21.2. NEET 2024 Leak: In 2024, the NEET-UG examination papers were leaked in Patna, and its origins were found to be in a school in Jharkhand’s Hazaribagh. The NTA initially denied the leak, calling the reports “baseless and without any ground”, despite youth protests and online campaigns asking for a re-test. Ultimately, the CBI which was probing the leak, admitted to the leak in the Supreme Court, which was hearing a clutch of petitions around the leak.3. The Gujarat OMR Racket, 2024: A major cheating scandal surrounding the same exam came to light in 2024, when it was found that a coaching centre in Gujarat’s Godhra was filling in NEET answer sheets for students for Rs 10 lakh each. The Godhra police filed an FIR against the owner of the coaching centre but also against the city coordinator for NEET centres Purshottam Sharma as well as Tushar Bhatt, the deputy superintendent of the NEET centre.4. UGC-NET 2024: In the same year, the University Grants Commission National Eligibility Test (UGC-NET), an exam for which over 11 lakh aspirants appeared, was cancelled a day after it was held on 18 June, 2024. The NTA, without offering more details, cancelled the exam on June 19, 2024 after stating that “the integrity of the examination may have been compromised”. The exam was held in December that year, but only 6.5 lakh candidates appeared this time.5. Council of Scientific and Industrial Research CSIR-UGC NET, 2024: Ten days before the exam was to be held, the NTA announced that it was cancelling the exam due to “unavoidable circumstances as well as logistics issues”. A total of 2.25 lakh aspirants were affected by this last-minute cancellation of the exam.6. Common University Entrance Test (CUET) Undergraduate Test, 2024: A few hours before the CUET-UG exam, meant for all aspirants who wish to enter an undergraduate programme in any of the central universities, was cancelled in all Delhi centres. The NTA, once again, cited “unavoidable reasons” behind this postponement, from May 15 to May 29, 2024.7. CUET 2024 Results Delayed: The same exam’s results were delayed by almost a month by the NTA, after it was forced to conduct another retest for 1,000 aspirants in July 2024, after it had already conducted a second exam for all Delhi centres. This delay in reporting the CUET results disrupted academic institutes as well as students, since it delayed the start of the academic year. News reports said it had triggered anxiety and confusion among students and parents alike, while also forcing colleges to shorten holidays.8. Patent Examiner exams, 2023: The Modi government decided to take away the Quality Council of India’s authority to conduct this exam and instead, assigned it to the NTA after “irregularities” were found in the online exam conducted in September 2023. Titled the ‘Controller General Of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks (CGPTDTM)’ exams, 2023, it saw over 89,000 candidates applying for 553 positions in the Ministry of Commerce. However, some applicants had to undergo a re-test after a “glitch”. Not just that, many applicants complained that their centres had been changed without notice – candidates in Bengal were asked to go to Bhubaneswar, those in Chhattisgarh were asked to go to Himachal Pradesh – just days before the exam. Even when the results were declared, about 1,000 candidates could not find their results on the website. These irregularities forced a group of applicants to approach the Delhi high court asking for a re-exam. Their petition, however, was dismissed in the court, with the court insisting that they approach the Central Administrative Tribunal, instead.9. JEE Main, 2025: The Joint Entrance Examination (JEE-Main) of 2025 was riddled with errors throughout – the NTA admitted that 12 of the questions that appeared in the exam were wrong and would be dropped. In addition, even the answer key it published was found to be full of inaccuracies, forcing parents and users to flag the issue on social media and dash off emails to the NTA.10. NEET 2024, not just a leak: The NEET-UG 2024 exam, which saw leaks in multiple places, was also suspicious because of the rampant “mark inflation” that students saw. Sixty-seven students got a perfect 720 out of 720 marks, up from just two students the previous year.11. The NTA chief investigates his own unit’s failures: The NEET-UG 2024’s failures – including errors in questions – meant over 1,500 students had to be given “grace marks”. The NTA, then, announced a four-member panel headed by a “former UPSC chairperson”, it said, who would scrutinise the results of these 1,500-odd students. Except, it turned out that the panel was going to be headed by Joshi – who was UPSC chairperson before being picked to head the NTA. The move came in for heavy flak, with many questioning how the NTA chief was expected to review the failures of his own agency.Such failures of the NTA have received attention, even inside Parliament. The all-party Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth And Sports, in its December 2025 report, was biting in its assessment of the NTA’s functioning.“The Committee reiterates that the NTA’s performance in the last year has not inspired much confidence,” the report said. “It has been brought to the notice of the Committee that in the year 2024 alone, of the 14 competitive examinations conducted by the NTA, at least five faced major issues…,” it said. “The Committee therefore recommends that NTA need to quickly get their act together so that such instances, which otherwise are fully avoidable, do not occur in future.”12. Appointment mess: Joshi’s patchy record at the NTA doesn’t come as a surprise to Bhopal-based activist Ajay Dubey. Dubey had been tracking Joshi’s public career since it began, in 2003 when he was appointed as the head of the MPPSC. After his RTI query revealed Joshi’s links with the BJP leadership, Dubey started tracking his career. In 2009, his fears came true.The Joshi-led MPPSC found itself embroiled in a controversy when it recruited over 350 professors. Allegations swirled around how many of those recruited flouted norms and were ineligible, but were appointed nonetheless.Another Bhopal-based activist, Pankaj Prajapati, filed a petition in the Madhya Pradesh high court after he found that 88 of those recruited had not met the eligibility criteria. “The rules said that professors were supposed to have a PhD and 10 years of teaching experience, but we found that at least 88 of the professors had neither,” he told The Wire.Prajapati’s petition was dismissed by the high court, with the court asking him to first approach the MP government and re-file the petition if they fail to address his grievances.13. Appointing officer later linked to paper leakJoshi, in his tenure at the MPPSC, also made a contentious appointment: the Joshi-led MPPSC appointed to the crucial post of the PSC exam controller, a man named S.K. Sharma, who was later linked to a leak of the Ayurveda Medical Officers (AMO) exam, held in the state in 2014. Sharma, it was reported, had continued to stay on in his post for months after his tenure had ended, and was removed after his links to the paper leak came to the fore, according to a 2014 Times of India report.Joshi’s meteoric rise, unhinderedDespite at least 13 instances of irregularities marking his career, Joshi has only continued to rise through the ranks.His journey – from a professor of management studies in Jabalpur to the chairperson of the MPPSC and CPSC to then heading the UPSC and now, the NTA – demonstrates this.In fact, even after the debacles at the NTA which have invited national scrutiny, Joshi has continued to see government rewards come his way. In August 2024, months after the NEET, the Modi government went out of its way to appoint him as the head of a key committee to finalise the vice-chancellor of the Mahatma Gandhi Antarashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya in Wardha.Similarly, in March that year, Joshi was appointed by the Chhattisgarh government to head a commission which was meant to advise the government, ironically, on conducting CGPSC examinations in a transparent manner.But despite the shortcomings across these organisations, Joshi’s career hasn’t faced any setbacks.The opposition Congress has questioned this immunity that Joshi has enjoyed.“You changed the director general of the NTA, but you did not change the NTA chairman,” said Gaurav Gogoi, Congress MP and deputy leader of opposition asked in Parliament last week.“You do not have faith in the education minister, nor in the NTA DG. Why do you have such faith in the NTA chairman? Why are you protecting him?” Gogoi asked, before adding, “It is because he is associated with a particular organisation.”Dubey, the Bhopal-based activist, said repeated plum assignments demonstrate the political backing Joshi enjoys in the RSS-BJP ecosystem. “The BJP should come out and tell us what is so special about him that he keeps relinquishing his posts, only to be promoted by the government?” he asked.Dubey rued that his initial red flags around Joshi’s appointment and his BJP links were ignored. “The person whose accountability some of us in MP had questioned early on, now the whole country is suffering as a result of his ineffectiveness.”Kunal Purohit is an investigative journalist.