2024-06-13 07:40:03
New Delhi The Supreme Court on Tuesday sought answers from the National Testing Agency (NTA) and the Centre over the controversy surrounding NEET-UG 2024, observing that the “sanctity of the examination” has been affected by allegations of paper leak and irregularities in the results announced on June 4.
Issuing notice on a petition filed by 10 NEET-UG candidates — it is the premier examination for undergraduate medical college admissions in the country — demanding stay of the results and holding of fresh examination, a vacation bench headed by justice Vikram Nath declined to halt the ongoing counselling process and kept the matter for 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 said, “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 centres spread across 571 cities (including overseas).
ALSO READ- Students anxious over NEET examination, as petitions filed in Rajasthan and MP high courts
The tests have been dogged by controversy, especially this year, with several allegations of paper leaks and inaccurate marking from across states prompting candidates to move court. Opposition parties, including the Congress, have called for a probe as the allegations into a political firestorm.
Advocate Mathews J Nedumpara, who appeared for the petitioners, urged the court that allegations of paper leak have surfaced and investigations have been initiated by the Bihar Police. Demanding a stay on the results till investigations are over, Nedumpara said, “Counselling has begun. We are seeking interim orders that let counselling be stayed in the meantime.”
The bench, however, was not inclined to passing such an order. It said, “Let counselling go on. We will not stop the counselling,” it said.
ALSO READ- NEET induces overcrowding at top, grace marks arbitrary, allege students
Senior advocate Naresh Kaushik, appearing for NTA, was present in court and pointed to an order passed by the top court on May 17 on a petition, filed by a candidate, Vanishika Yadav, who alleged 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 said that the present petition be taken up with the other case.
Earlier in the day, lawyers representing other students informed the court that more petitions have been filed challenging other aspects of NEET-UG, raising not just allegations of paper leak and award of marks but the compensatory policy of NTA to award grace marks for loss of time suffered by 1,563 candidates spread across different exam centres.
Advocates J Sai Deepak and Kunal Cheema, representing two such sets of petitions, requested the bench to tag their matter with the present petition heard by court. The bench expressed its inability citing procedure that requires all unlisted matters to be mentioned before the Supreme Court registry, which places them for consideration of the CJI who passes orders regarding listing.
The petition heard on Tuesday was filed on June 1, much before the NEET-UG results were announced on June 4. Allegations of paper leak rocked this year’s NEET-UG after allegations surfaced that in one centre in Rajasthan students appearing for Hindi medium got question papers in English while there were reports of torn OMR sheets and delay in distribution of question papers surfaced. A case was lodged in Patna over alleged paper leak following which the police have arrested some persons and investigations are still on.
ALSO READ- After outcry on NEET results 2024, ad for CLAT goes viral: ‘Capitalism is peaking’
Later, NTA announced its policy to award grace marks to 1,536 students — from six centres in Meghalaya, Haryana, Chhattisgarh, Surat and Chandigarh — who complained that they did not get the complete 3 hours and 20 minutes stipulated for the examination. With the declaration of results on June 4, suspicions of alleged paper leak gained ground as six candidates from the same centre in Haryana scored full marks out of 720.
The marking scheme adopted by NTA came under cloud as 67 candidates got a perfect score of 720 and those at ranks 68 and 69 had a score of 719 and 718 marks. NTA denied allegations of paper leak and issued a press release on June 7 explaining that out of the 67 candidates who secured full marks, 44 got on account of revision in one answer key of Physics while six benefitted from the grace marks allotted for loss of time.
Besides petitions filed in the top court, the Calcutta high court has entertained a petition over the alleged irregularities in the examination and the compensatory policy has separately been challenged in a separate petition before the Delhi high court.
The Congress and other opposition parties have raised the controversy surrounding the NEET results, and questioned the efficiency of the Centre to conduct the examination. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi even promised to raise the issue in Parliament.
Amid these developments, the ministry of education on June 8 announced the setting up 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 affected. The committee is expected to submit its report within a week.
Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into alleged corrupt practices surrounding the exams.
“After the BJP came to power, NEET came into existence which has inconvenienced students. It has become an epicentre of corruption. By introducing NEET, the Union government took control over examinations and admissions nationwide. It forced the parents to pay higher fees for the NEET tuition,” Patole told reporters in Mumbai.
