The Supreme Court of India is scheduled to hear a series of petitions on Thursday concerning allegations of paper leakage and irregularities in the NEET-UG 2024 examination, which took place on May 5.
The case will be heard by a bench comprising Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra. Previously, on July 15, the court postponed the hearing to allow petitioners time to respond to affidavits submitted by the Central Government and the National Testing Agency (NTA). The court noted that some parties had not yet received these affidavits and needed to prepare their responses.
On July 11, the Central Government filed an affidavit asserting that there was no widespread malpractice in the NEET-UG 2024 exam. The affidavit cited data analytics from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, indicating no evidence of mass malpractice or localized benefits leading to abnormal scores. It also announced that counseling would be conducted in four rounds beginning in the third week of July. The affidavit clarified that any candidate found to have benefited from malpractice would have their candidature canceled at any stage of the counseling process or afterward.
The NTA, in its affidavit, declared the video purporting to show a leaked NEET-UG exam paper on Telegram on May 4 as fake, stating that the timestamp was manipulated to create a false impression of an early leak. The NTA also conducted an analysis of candidate marks at various levels, concluding that the distribution of marks was normal and not influenced by any external factors.
The Supreme Court has taken up a batch of pleas requesting the recall of the NEET-UG 2024 results and a fresh examination due to alleged paper leakage and irregularities. Aspirants have approached the court raising concerns about the leakage of the question paper, compensatory marks, and anomalies in the NEET-UG questions. The NEET-UG exam, administered by the NTA, is crucial for admissions to MBBS, BDS, AYUSH, and other related courses in institutions across the country. The 2024 exam was conducted at 4,750 centers on May 5, with approximately 24 lakh candidates participating.
