A plea has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking scrapping of the NEET-UG 2024 exam and an apex court-monitored probe by the Central Bureau Investigation (CBI) or any other independent probe agency into the alleged irregularities in the medical test.
The plea, which was been filed by 20 students who had appeared for the national level medical entrance exam, also seeks directions to the National Testing Agency (NTA) and others to re-conduct the test.
The top court on Friday had sought responses from the Centre and the NTA on a plea for a CBI investigation into the allegations of paper leak and other discrepancies in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (Undergraduate)-2024.
The fresh plea, however, said that considering the "rampant irregularities and fraudulent practices", re-examination would only help short-list the deserving candidates to get admission in medical colleges.
Dheeraj Singh, the advocate who constructed the plea, said, "Because the sanctity of the examination is questionable in view of the confirmed cases of leakage of question paper, with respect to which FIRs have been lodged and several persons have been arrested, as per the media reports."
It noted that the results declared by NTA unveiled that 67 candidates scored the perfect 720/720 score. The plea said that a closer analysis would also show that there was a significant increase of over 400 per cent students scoring between 620 and 720 marks.
"The aforesaid material irregularities are required to be investigated thoroughly by CBI or by any other independent agency or committee under the supervision of this court so as to do justice to the large number of meritorious students whose claims have been defeated by systemic failure to ensure conduct of fair examination," it said.
Filed by medical aspirants, the plea sought a direction to a court-appointed committee or any other independent probe agency to conduct "post-exam analysis including academic background check, forensic analysis and investigate all such candidates who have scored 60 and above", all under the supervision of the apex court.
It asked the top court to direct NTA and others to take effective measures to ensure transparency and fairness in the examination process and to address the concerns raised by students in connection with the allegations.
The Centre and the NTA told the Supreme Court on Thursday that they cancelled the grace marks given to 1,563 candidates who took the examination for admission to MBBS and other such courses.
The medical aspirants would have the option of either taking re-examination or let go of the compensatory marks awarded to them for the loss of time.
Notably, several political parties including the Congress, AAP had slammed the Centre over the irregularities, accusing it of not taking any action against the same.
The NEET UG 2024 was held on May 5 across 4,750 centres and around 24 lakh students appeared for it. The results were expected to be declared on June 14 but were announced 10 days earlier on June 4, the same day as the results for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Parents and medical aspirants levelled allegations of paper leaks and irregularities against the NTA, asking for a thorough investigation into the same.
Meanwhile, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Friday said that the government will not tolerate any malpractice or irregularities in the conduct of exams and accountability of the NTA will be fixed if lapses are found.
(With PTI inputs)
