During the hearing, counsel for some petitioners sought re-test and told the Supreme Court that identification of tainted and untainted is not possible. The apex court also asked the central government and the NTA about action taken over the matter, noting that there was no doubt that the leak of question paper has taken place.
The Supreme Court on Monday, while hearing pleas over the NEET-UG 2024 matter, said if sanctity of the exam is lost, then re-test has to be ordered, adding that cancellation of the exam is "extreme last resort". The Supreme Court was hearing on Monday more than 30 pleas related to the controversy-ridden medical entrance exam NEET-UG 2024, including those alleging irregularities and malpractices in the May 5 test and seeking a direction to conduct it afresh.
During the hearing, counsel for some petitioners sought re-test and told the Supreme Court that identification of tainted and untainted is not possible. The apex court also asked the central government and the NTA about action taken over the matter, noting that there was no doubt that the leak of question paper has taken place. Follow NEET-UG Plea SC Hearing LIVE Updates
"No question that paper has been leaked, we are determining the extent of leak... Are we still in the process of identifying students who were beneficiaries? If we are [...], we will have to cancel the exam. Cancellation of exam of 24 lakh students is a matter of extreme last resort," the Supreme Court said on Monday.
National Testing Agency (NTA) conducted the NEET UG 2024 exam on May 5. Since the day of the exam, the NEET exam was been caught up in a series of controversies such as alleged paper leaks.
Following the declaration of the NEET UG results, a major uproar regarding the results surfaced after it was announced that 67 students had topped the exam, NEET UG 2023 had a total of two topppers.
Afterwards, it was announced that NTA had awarded grace marks to students who had suffered loss of time at their exam centres on May 5.
On June 11, a plea in the Supreme Court called for the exam to be re-conducted. Upon hearing the petition, the top court stated that the sanctity of the NEET UG exam had been compromised and called on responses from the Central Government and NTA.
However, after major protests and backlash, NTA told the Supreme Court that it will be cancelling the grace marks of 1,563 students and offer them re-exam.
During thehearing on Monmday, the Supreme Court said there are "certain red flags such as 67 candidates scoring 720/720, adding that in previous years, the proportion was very low.
"If paper leak is taking place through Telegram, WhatsApp and electronic means, then it spreads like wildfire," the top court said on Monday on NEET-UG 2024.
"We have to identify the beneficiaries. Anybody who has breached is not entitled to... more than the number of beneficiaries, we want to know what action was taken by government and the NTA," the Supreme Court said.
The Supreme Court give petitioners' lawyers a day's time to give one set of submissions regarding their demand for a retest. The top court also asked the CBI file a status report before the court regarding all FIRs.
Asking the number of beneficiaries of question paper leak and the action taken against them, the Supreme Court also asked what will the government do to identify beneficiaries of question paper leak assuming that the exam is not cancelled.
"Let us not be in self-denial about what happened," the Supreme Court on NEET-UG 2024 question paper leak, asking about involving cyber forensic unit, using AI to ascertain number of wrongdoers and explore possibility of re-test for them.
Dictating the order, the Supreme Court said will have to be scrutinised whether: (1) alleged breach has taken place at systemic level; (2) the breach has affected integrity of entire exam process; (3) whether it's possible to segregate beneficiaries of fraud from untainted students.
The Supreme Court directed NTA to clarify on the basis of information available: (1) when the leak of question papers took place; (2) manner in which papers were leaked/disseminated; (3) time duration between leak and actual conduct of exam.