Supreme Court Demands Answers from NTA and Centre on NEET-UG 2024 Controversy, Citing Impact on Exam’s Sanctity.

New Delhi :The Supreme Court on Tuesday sought answers from the National Testing Agency (NTA) and the Centre regarding the controversy surrounding NEET-UG 2024. The court observed that the “sanctity of the examination” has been compromised due to allegations of paper leaks and irregularities in the results announced on June 4.

Issuing notice on a petition filed by 10 NEET-UG candidates—the premier examination for undergraduate medical college admissions in the country—demanding a stay of the results and a fresh examination, a vacation bench headed by Justice Vikram Nath declined to halt the ongoing counseling process. The matter is scheduled for a hearing on July 8, along with a pending petition over alleged discrepancies in the NEET-UG test held on May 5. The bench, also comprising Justice Ahsanuddin Amanullah, remarked, “The matter is not so simple. The sanctity of the examination has been affected. We need answers for that.”

The court was hearing a petition by 10 candidates who took the National Eligibility-cum Entrance Test (NEET) for admission to MBBS courses among the nearly 2.4 million students who took the test at 4,750 centers across 571 cities, including overseas. This year’s tests have been marred by controversy, with allegations of paper leaks and inaccurate marking prompting candidates to move to court. Opposition parties, including the Congress, have called for a probe, turning the allegations into a political issue.

Advocate Mathews J Nedumpara, representing the petitioners, urged the court to stay the results until investigations into the alleged paper leaks, initiated by the Bihar Police, are concluded. He argued, “Counseling has begun. We are seeking interim orders to stay the counseling in the meantime.” However, the bench was not inclined to pass such an order, stating, “Let counseling go on. We will not stop the counseling.”

Senior advocate Naresh Kaushik, appearing for NTA, referred to an order passed by the top court on May 17 in a petition filed by a candidate, Vanishika Yadav, who alleged a paper leak in the NEET-UG examination. As the matter is pending before a bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, the vacation bench directed NTA to file its response and indicated that the present petition would be taken up with the other case.

Earlier in the day, lawyers representing other students informed the court that additional petitions challenging various aspects of NEET-UG had been filed. These petitions raised concerns about not just allegations of paper leaks and inaccurate marking but also the NTA’s policy to award grace marks for the time lost by 1,563 candidates across different exam centers.

Advocates J Sai Deepak and Kunal Cheema, representing two such sets of petitions, requested the bench to tag their matters with the present petition. The bench, however, cited procedural constraints that require all unlisted matters to be mentioned before the Supreme Court registry, which then places them for consideration by the CJI.

The petition heard on Tuesday was filed on June 1, prior to the announcement of the NEET-UG results on June 4. Allegations of paper leaks surfaced after reports indicated that students at one center in Rajasthan received question papers in English instead of Hindi. Other issues included torn OMR sheets and delays in distributing question papers.

A case was lodged in Patna regarding the alleged paper leak, leading to several arrests and ongoing investigations. Subsequently, NTA announced its policy to award grace marks to 1,536 students from six centers in Meghalaya, Haryana, Chhattisgarh, Surat, and Chandigarh who complained about not receiving the complete 3 hours and 20 minutes stipulated for the examination. The suspicions of a paper leak were fueled when six candidates from the same center in Haryana scored full marks out of 720.

The NTA’s marking scheme came under scrutiny as 67 candidates scored a perfect 720, and those ranked 68th and 69th scored 719 and 718 marks, respectively. NTA denied the allegations of a paper leak and issued a press release on June 7 explaining that out of the 67 candidates who secured full marks, 44 did so due to a revision in one Physics answer key, while six benefitted from the grace marks allotted for lost time.

In addition to petitions filed in the top court, the Calcutta High Court has entertained a petition regarding the alleged irregularities in the examination, and the compensatory policy has been separately challenged in a petition before the Delhi High Court.

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The Congress and other opposition parties have raised concerns over the NEET results and questioned the Centre’s efficiency in conducting the examination. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has promised to raise the issue in Parliament.

Amid these developments, the Ministry of Education on June 8 announced the formation of a four-member panel to review the grace marks awarded to over 1,500 students, while maintaining that the integrity of the examination has not been compromised. The committee is expected to submit its report within a week.

Maharashtra Congress President Nana Patole has demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the alleged corrupt practices surrounding the exams. He stated, “After the BJP came to power, NEET came into existence, which has inconvenienced students. It has become an epicenter of corruption. By introducing NEET, the Union government took control over examinations and admissions nationwide, forcing parents to pay higher fees for NEET tuition.”