New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday heard the petitioners seeking a re-test in the NEET-UG examinations conducted in 2024 for admission to medical entrance exams and said that the Centre cannot deny that paper leak was there. The top court asked the National Testing Agency (NTA) and Centre to explain to the court if the tainted candidates can be seperated from the untainted ones. The court further asked Centre to tell what actions have been taken to ensure that students who benefitted from paper leak do not enter the system.
SC announces appointment of a nodal counsel akin to CB matters and directs Centre to distribute a detailed schedule of dates. Petitioners urge the court to seek a CBI report on the direction of investigation into the 6 FIRs. SG pledges to request records from CBI and proposes the next hearing be scheduled for Thursday.
“Are we still in the process of identifying the tainted students?” the Supreme Court asked while maintaining that re-examination for 24 lakh studnets is a decision of last resort.
The bench headed by CJI Chandrachud told Centre lets not be in “self-denial” and further added that with the kind of technology we have, the Centre and NTA have to answer if it is possible to analyse the data and find out the wrongdoers. The CJI then said that they may consider re-examination for suspected wrongdoers.
The court has directed the NTA to fully disclose three aspects: the nature of the leak, the locations where the leak occurred, and the time lag between the leak and the exam. The NTA is instructed to provide clarity on these issues.
“Assuming that we are not cancelling the exam, how do we do identify the tainted candidates,” the top court asked the Centre.
In a situation where breach affects entirety of process and it’s not possible to segregate beneficiaries from others, it may be necessary to order re-exam
The top court said that they have to see if a mechanism can be developed to identify red flags in candidates. The court further said that the time gap between the paper-leak and examination will be decisive in whether there will be a Re-examination or not. The court further said that if it is proven that the modality of paper leak was through the a social media platform like Telegram and was on a large scale, then also a case would be made for a re-examination.
The petitioners however contended that the NTA should also be investigated. On Feb 9, 2024, the NTA issued an online application form to admission to NEET-UG 2024. The exams were held on May 5. Results were declared on June 4, 2024. The petitioners have also asked why the NTA released results on June 4 (Lok Sabha election results date) when the due date was June 14.
