Supreme Court is set to listen to the petitions relating to the NEET-UG 2024 exam on 11 July 2024 i.e. Thursday. In the last hearing of the case, Supreme court bench headed by the Chief Justice of India kept the date for hearing of the case on 11 July.
The hearing is a day after when the centre has submitted an affidavit apposing the re-test of UGC 2024 exam.
What apex court says
On 8 of July the supreme court ordered National Testing Agency (NTA) to provide answers to questions relating to irregularities in medical exam and paper leak.
It also ordered the central government to provide an affidavit containing the details of the issue and Central Bureau of Investigation has to submit a report of the case findings.
Supreme court also stated how irregularities pertaining to the exam were very much prevalent. In its statement it says “if extensive irregularities are not found the re-test will not be conducted.” It is the question of 23 lakh students of India and proper investigation will be made.”
While NTA in this regard still defends that no paper leak was made for 2024 exam. “We have checked the concerned areas and have monitored the surveillance. No such indication of paper leak was found.”- NTA says.
What center and NTA says
In the affidavit that the center has submitted there has been no case of irregularities and loopholes found pertaining to the entrance exam. It further authenticated the data by citing the results of IIT-Madras. It says that the report has been made by IIT- Madras and no “malpractices” have been noticed by them. It cited that the marks of the candidates were in ‘bell-shape graph’ suggesting that no large- scale abnormalities were there as most of the competitive exams had the same graph of results. Government’s affidavit also includes the measures it took regarding the paper-leak case. It says that the analysis has been done for ranks up to 1.5 lakh as there are 1.2 lakh seats all over India.
NTA defended itself by citing that instead of OMR, online exams will be held. NTA will be relying on the IIT- Madras reports in supreme court hearing today. NTA in its affidavit has claimed that only 17 students out of 67 have been awarded full marks in provisional answer sheets, not a high number compared to previous years. Also, these students are spread over 16 different centres and 15 cities indicating that the allegations of full marks from same centres is false.
“The top 100 students in exam were checked which confirmed that they were from 95 centres and 56 different cities. The results were geographically and educationally rich indicating the legitimacy of exam.”- NTA says.
Regarding the allegation for wrong question paper in Patna centre, NTA said “Initially wrong medium of paper was distributed. However, it was corrected afterwards but candidates had already left the centre and wrong picture of question paper was circulated on social meida.” According to National Testing Agency, the paper posted on telegram by a channel has been marked as fake.
Background and about NEET-UG exam case
Today, the apex court will be hearing the petitions on the issue and NTA and centre will have to submit affidavit along with arguments to defend the legitimacy of the exam. The bench three- person bench will be headed by CJI D.Y. Chandrachud, Justice J.B. Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Mishra.
National Testing Agency (NTA) conducts several exams for undergraduate and post graduate students every year. NEET-UG is given for medical students who want to become doctors and enroll for admission in medical colleges across India.
When the results were declared on 25 May 2024, several students were left disheartened as record breaking number of candidates had secured full 720 marks. This had left a mark on integrity and legitimacy of the institution and the entrance exam.
