UPSC CSE Prelims 2026: NSUI alleges paper leak; coaching centre calls claims ‘baseless’

A fresh controversy has erupted over the UPSC CSE prelims exam 2026 paper leak claims after the students’ body, the National Students' Union of India (NSUI) president Vinod Jhakar alleged that 82 out of 100 questions that appeared in this year’s exam matched the study material circulated by a private coaching centre in Delhi.

Reportedly, the study material shared by the ANANTAM IAS coaching centre in the last seven months had 82 questions matching the UPSC CSE prelims 2026 paper.

According to NSUI’s president, the coaching centre also updated all study material by May 26, two days after the CSE prelims exam was conducted.

NSUI president released a video online raising concerns over alleged UPSC CSE paper leak and demanded a thorough investigation into the paper leak claims.

“NSUI demands that the facts brought forward by the youth regarding the UPSC 2026 exam be impartially investigated and the full truth brought before the nation,” NSUI posted on its X account.

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UPSC CSE 2026: Coaching centre calls paper leak claims ‘baseless’

However, the coaching centre refuted the claims by NSUI president Jhakar and called them “baseless”. “That is a false and serious allegation; it implies a criminal act, and it has no basis,” the coaching centre told Times Now.

The coaching centre explained that the suspicion arose because some articles explaining the CSE answer key had the ‘pre-exam’ publication dates. It further clarified that early publication dates were chosen on purpose to organise a large number of explanatory articles.

Although the coaching centre implied that backdated timestamps do not suggest prior access to the question paper and that the leak allegations constitute a 'criminal act.'

Several users on social media questioned the fact that the study material shared by the coaching centre was edited and replaced by similar content after the exam date.

A user posted on X and said: “What happened was that after the Prelims exam, the question paper was reviewed, and then old online content was edited to change the dates. Not only that, but old content was removed and content exactly matching the topics asked in the exam was inserted in its place. After that, the promotion started that 82 questions came from our content.”

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UPSC CSE Result 2026

The commission has declared the UPSC Civil Services Examination (CSE) prelims results 2026 for more than 5.01 lakh candidates on its official website at upsc.gov.in. A total of 13,343 candidates have qualified for the UPSC CSE mains exam 2026.

For the first time, the UPSC issued the CSE prelims provisional answer key right after three days of the exam. UPSC prelims exam was held on May 24, in two shifts across 2,073 centres across the country.