Supreme Court Opens Query on NEET-UG 2024 Paper Leakage Claims

The Supreme Court scrutinizes NEET-UG 2024 paper leak allegations, questioning the exam's integrity. Concerns raised over question paper transportation and solving timeframe. The court considers potential re-test, balancing the impact on nearly 24 lakh students against exam sanctity.

On Thursday, the Indian Supreme Court heard several pleas for the re-conduct or Scrubbing of the 2024 National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for Undergraduate medical courses (NEET-UG), which has sparked doubts over the credibility of the examination.

This was the position that the Centre and the National Testing Agency (NTA) took before the court's seven-judge bench led by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud as the court asked them about the alleged paper leak. The NTA argued that the breach took place only 45 minutes to the exam in some of the centres; this the court considered to be far-fetched given the complexity of the exam.

NTA’s solicitor General Tushar Mehta further testified that, as per the CBI probe, the photos of the question papers were captured at a centre in Hazaribagh, Jharkhand between 8:00 AM and 9:20 AM on the examination day. Mehta said that a seven-people gang which formed a gang split to answer the questions then proceed to give answers to students who claimed to have paid for them.

The court also raised concerns on the movement of the question papers, which was alleged to be in the hands of a private courier company for six days and transported in an e-rickshaw to an examination center, whose principal has been arrested.

The petitioners canvassed for cancellation on the ground of “systemic failure” Thus the court’s argument that a re-test would be in order only when the sanctity of the exam had been compromised on a large scale. The bench observed the social implications of the case, in which twenty-three lakh ninety-five thousand students appeared in the examination for about one hundred seventy-five lakh available seats.

Controversies surrounding NEET-UG 2024 include absurdity in perfect scores and a dubious grace marks facility graciously extended to more than 1500 students.

Also Read: SC to Hear Further Petitions Related to NEET-UG 2024 Exam Issue

The Supreme court has set the next hearing for the 22nd of July as it still considers the verity and consequences of the alleged paper leak.