New Delhi: In a significant development amid a raging row over the NEET-UG, the Supreme Court on Friday sought responses from the Centre and the NTA on a plea seeking a CBI probe into allegations of question paper leak and other irregularities in the exam.
A vacation bench of justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta, which was hearing a PIL filed by Hiten Singh Kashyap, also sought responses from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Bihar government within two weeks.
It said the PIL will also be taken up with other pending ones on July 8, when the top court will start functioning after the summer vacation.
Meanwhile, the apex court Bench presided by Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta has disposed of petitions regarding grace marks given the Central government’s submission that the benefit of grace marks won’t be accrued.
On June 13, the Central government informed the Supreme Court that it had decided to cancel the scorecards of 1,563 NEET-UG 2024 candidates who were given grace marks. These students will be given an option to take a re-test, it said.
Those who don’t wish to sit for a re-exam, their actual marks will be taken into consideration, the government said.
The case will next be heard on July 8.
The development comes at a time when the medical entrance exam NEET-UG with over 24 lakh candidates appearing for it has become a centre of controversy over allegations of several irregularities and has triggered protests across the country and a political slugfest.
The NEET 2024 retest is likely to be conducted on June 23. The results of the retest are also expected to be released within a week by June 30.
What is the NEET controversy all about?
There have been allegations of inflation of marks in NEET-UG which has led to a record 67 candidates sharing top rank with perfect scores. Last year, two students shared the top rank. Students have been alleging the marks have been randomly reduced or increased for several candidates, affecting their ranks. The grace marks awarded to over 1,500 students to compensate for loss of time due to delays in exams at six centres are also under scanner.
Students from at least six centres in Meghalaya, Haryana, Chhattisgarh, Surat and Chandigarh complained about loss of time during the exams. At these locations, the students did not get the full 3 hours and 20 minutes to write the exam due to administrative reasons, such as the distribution of the wrong question paper, torn OMR sheets, or delay in the distribution of OMR sheets.
There have been allegations of paper leaks too. The Economic Offences Unit of Bihar Police had last month said that its investigation has revealed that the question papers and answers for NEET-UG were provided to approximately 35 aspirants before the May 5 exam. Thirteen individuals have been arrested so far in connection with the case.
A committee formed by the NTA investigated the matter and chose to use the formula devised and adopted by the apex court in a 2018 judgement, to address the loss of time faced by candidates. The loss of time was ascertained and such candidates were compensated with grace marks.
The NTA has maintained that the sanctity of the exam has not been compromised. It has attributed the rise in the number of top scorers to an increase in the competitiveness of the exam and an increase in performance standards.
