NEET-UG Row: Scrapping Entire Exam Not Rational, Centre Tells SC; NTA Says Claims Of Mass Malpractice 'Lack Basis'

The Centre on Friday told the Supreme Court that entirely scrapping the NEET UG 2024 exam will endanger the lakhs of honest candidates who attempted the medical entrance test.

It told the apex court that the Central Bureau of Investigation has been asked to conduct a comprehensive probe into the entire gamut of alleged irregularities.

"In the absence of proof of large-scale breach of confidentiality, scrapping the entire exam won't be rational," the Centre said.

Amid the massive protests, demanding the cancellation of the national level medical entrance exam, the Centre said that the Union of India "committed" towards conducting all competitive tests in a fair and transparent manner.

WHAT NTA TOLD SC

The National Testing Agency, which conducted the NEET UG examination, also told the apex court that scrapping the entire exam will be "hugely counterproductive and harmful to larger public interest".

It said that the allegations of paper leak in the NEET UG 2024 do not seem to have "any bearing" on the examination's conduct.

NTA told SC that the entirety of the national level medical entrance test was carried out in a fair manner with due confidentiality and without any malpractices.

NTA's affidavit came in response to one of the petitions in the top court. The testing agency said that the claim of "mass malpractice" during the conduct of NEET UG 2024 is "completely unfounded, misleading and lacks any basis".

"It is submitted that the present case is not a case wherein the entire examination process conducted across 4750 Centers in 571 cities (including 14 cities abroad) has suffered systematic failure, as it has not been vitiated by all pervasive factors of unfair means or paper leak etc," the agency said.

It said the alleged irregularities were confined to certain centres in two cities–Patna and Godhra.

NTA's affidative came in response to one of the petitions in the top court. "It is submitted that the present case is not a case wherein the entire examination process conducted across 4750 Centers in 571 cities (including 14 cities abroad) has suffered systematic failure, as it has not been vitiated by all pervasive factors of unfair means or paper leak etc," the agency said.

The agency noted that it adopted the best possible measures to ensure that the integrity and sanctity of the examination was not impacted or breached in any manner.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court will be hearing a batch of pleas related to the alleged irregularities in the NEET UG exam on July 8. These pleas seek a direction for re-NEET.

The batch of 26 petitions would be heard before a bench comprising Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra.

The National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test-Undergraduate (NEET UG) 2024 was conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) on May 5 across 4,750 centres. Around 24 lakh medical aspirants had appeared for the entrance test, the results for which were announced on June 4.

Hearing the slew of petitions earlier, the top court had sought answers from the Centre and the NTA over the alleged discrepancies in the NEET UG exam. It had said that even if there was "0.001 per cent negligence" on the part of anyone in the conduct of the examination, it should be thoroughly dealt with.

On June 13, the Centre and NTA had told the apex court that they had cancelled the grace marks that were awarded to 1,563 candidates. These students were given the option to either take a re-test or forgo the compensatory marks awarded for the loss of time.

CBI ARRESTS IN PAPER LEAK ROW

Meanwhile in the NEET UG paper leak case, the CBI arrested "kingpin" Aman Singh from Jharkhand's Hazaribagh on Wednesday, which came after an intelligence about a Jharkhand-based module's alleged involvement in the case.

Previously, the federal probe agency had arrested the principal and vice principal of Hazaribagh's Oasis School for their alleged involvement in the medical test's question paper leak.

Befoer this, two persons were arrested from Bihar in relation to the alleged irregularities in the NEET UG exam.

So far, the CBI has registered six FIRs in the case, including one of its own, three in Rajasthan and one each in Bihar and Gujarat.