On Thursday, the Supreme Court will review multiple petitions alleging paper leakage and malpractices in the NEET-UG 2024 exam, which was conducted on May 5. The case will be heard by a bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra on July 18.
The hearing, initially scheduled for July 15, was adjourned to Thursday to allow petitioners time to respond to affidavits submitted by the Centre and the National Testing Agency (NTA). The court noted that some parties had not yet received these affidavits and required time to prepare their responses.
The Central government, in an affidavit filed on July 11, denied any widespread malpractice in the NEET-UG 2024 exam. According to data analytics by the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, there was no indication of mass malpractice or localized candidate benefit leading to abnormal scores.
The Centre’s affidavit also stated that NEET-UG counselling will be conducted in four rounds starting from the third week of July. It emphasized that if any candidate is found to have benefitted from malpractice, their candidature will be canceled at any stage during or after the counselling process.
The NTA, in its affidavit, declared that a video allegedly showing a leaked NEET-UG exam paper on Telegram on May 4 was fake, with a manipulated timestamp to create a false impression of an early leak. The NTA also conducted an analysis of the distribution of marks at national, state, city, and centre levels, finding the distribution to be normal with no extraneous factors influencing it.
The Supreme Court is considering petitions seeking to recall NEET-UG 2024 results and conduct the exam afresh due to alleged paper leakage and malpractices. Aspirants had raised concerns about the leakage, compensatory marks, and anomalies in the NEET-UG exam.
NEET-UG, conducted by the NTA, is the entrance exam for admissions into MBBS, BDS, AYUSH, and other related courses in government and private institutions across India. The 2024 exam was held at 4,750 centres with around 24 lakh candidates participating.
