The Supreme Court today deferred hearing on the petitions seeking scrapping of NEET-UG 2024 for alleged paper leak and other malpractices to July 18. A three-judge Bench led by CJI DY Chandrachud said the Union of India and the National Testing Agency (NTA) had filed their replies but some of the advocates had not got the e-copies of the replies.
The Bench posted the matter for next Thursday to enable the parties to peruse the replies. The Centre has asserted that there was no indication of mass malpractice or local set of candidates being benefited.
The NTA has also said that Telegram videos allegedly showing photos of leaked question papers were fake and manipulated. Citing a technical analysis of NEET-2024 data carried out by experts from IIT Madras, the Centre has told the Supreme Court that there was no indication of mass malpractice or local set of candidates being benefited.
In an affidavit filed in response to petitions seeking scrapping of NEET-UG 2024 for alleged paper leak and other malpractices, the Union Ministry of Education asserted that there was “very less likelihood of mass malpractice”.
Citing the results of the analysis done by experts of IIT Madras, the Centre said, “The analysis shows that there is neither any indication of mass malpractice nor a localised set of candidates being benefited leading to abnormal scores.”
It said, “There is an overall increase in the marks obtained by students, specifically in the range of 550 to 720. This increase is seen across the cities and centres. This is attributed to 25% reduction in syllabus. In addition, candidates obtaining such high marks are spread across multiple cities and multiple centres, indicating very less likelihood of mass malpractice.”
Both the Centre and the NTA — which conducts the NEET-UG test – have opposed scrapping the examination. In an affidavit filed in the top court, the Centre said scrapping the entire examination would seriously jeopardise lakhs of honest candidates who didn’t adopt any unfair means.
In a separate affidavit, the NTA also opposed the cancellation of the exam, saying it “would be hugely counterproductive and significantly harmful to the larger public interest, especially to the career prospects of the qualified candidates”.
Around 24 lakh students appeared for NEET-UG 2024 Examination conducted on May 5 by the NTA across 4,750 centres in 511 cities and 14 centres abroad for admission to MBBS, BDS, AYUSH and other related courses in more than 700 government and private institutions to fill 1.08 lakh seats.
