After many petitions filed against the NEET – UG examination 2024 that were followed by some significant changes by the NTA, the Supreme Court of India has yet again asked NTA to check and admit if any irregularities are found in the conduct.
On Tuesday, 18 June 2024, a vacation bench of Justices Vikram Nath and S.V.N. Bhatti told the court that even the “negligence” of “0.001 per cent” should be “thoroughly dealt with”. They also emphasized upon this matter not being treated as an ordinary “adversarial litigation”. The “labour” students “undergo” was acknowledged and the harm a fraudulent system can pose in the society was highlighted.
The Court has announced 8 July to be the next hearing date, allowing more than a couple of weeks’ time for the National Testing Agency to perform a thorough check of the conduct and results. This happened post the fresh set of petitions filed in many regions. The test authorities are expected to address how the exam can be conducted “afresh” for those who’d opt along with “other pending petitions”.
However, by far, no serious misconduct on the part of NTA has been brought to evidence but the Supreme Court has advised it to admit and come clean if any negligence has been in motion. The bench has asked the test authority to “stand firm” as an agency “responsible for conducting the examination”.
Why NTA stands at the other end of questions.
National Testing Agency is trusted with conducting PAN India exams fairly. Almost all the big exams that are written by students across the nation are organised by NTA. National Eligibility cum Entrance Test is one such major test that is conducted by the NTA and every year it witnesses tens of thousands of students that are medical aspirants. The entrance exam is for courses like MBBS, BDS, etcetera. This year, it was held on 5 May, Sunday in which more than 23 lakh students appeared.
Aspirants of medicine eagerly await this opportunity and study over the years to make it happen and when students sit in this exam in massive numbers, it’s all the more reason for the examination authorities to be completely attentive and fair.
However, the results called for some controversy and several petitions were filed “raising grievances”. The Central Bureau of Investigation is in play to investigate the question paper leak allegations and any other irregularities or misconducts.
The allegations of question paper leak have gained weight with the confession letter of Sikandar Prasad Yadavendu, an engineer, who claimed that “4 NEET candidates” were “assisted” by him to “stay” in Patna along with “a guardian of one of them”.
The Doubts NEET-UG’24 Results Brought
The results were due for 14 June but were announced 10 days earlier on 4 June. This haste has looked mysterious for a number of reasons. First, the results are usually delayed instead of arriving early. Second, they happened to coincide with the date of the Central Elections Results 2024 which does not seem like a coincidence.
Around 67 students scored full marks that is 720, a number not even close to it has been seen in the history of this exam. A few of these students happened to be in the same centre. Grace marks were given to about 1,563 candidates which were later removed by the National Testing Agency on 13 June mentioning that those students can either reattempt the exam or accept the score without the grace marks.
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