NEET UG Exam: The Supreme Court heard the NEET UG case today. During the hearing, the CJI said that more than 23 lakh students appeared in the exam for 1 lakh 8 thousand seats. Of these, 52 thousand are in private colleges and 56 thousand are in government colleges. The exam consists of 180 questions, which carry a total of 720 marks and there is a negative mark for the wrong answer. The CJI recorded the submission that the two major allegations leveled are leakage of papers and systematic failure. The petitioners have raised the question of systematic failure and demanded a re-examination. FIRs have also been registered in many states regarding this.
There will be no re-NEETAfter this, the court said in its order that the NEET UG exam will not be held again. The CJI said that the CBI investigation is incomplete, so we had asked the NTA to clarify whether the irregularities have occurred on a large scale or not. The Center and NTA have cited the report of IIT Madras in their reply. The Chief Justice further said that on the basis of the material and data presented before us, there is no indication of systematic leakage of the question paper, which would indicate a disruption in the sanctity of the examination. After this, the SC refused to conduct the NEET re-examination. The court said that in view of the facts available before it, it would not be justified to conduct the examination again.
Tainted students can be separatedThe CJI said that tainted students can be separated from the rest of the students. If the investigation reveals an increase in the number of beneficiaries, then action will be taken against any such student at any stage despite the completion of the counseling process. Any student who is found to be involved in this fraud or is a beneficiary will not have the right to get admission. According to the CBI investigation, there are 155 such students who have benefited from the irregularities due to the paper leak.
Directing to conduct a fresh exam is fraught with serious consequencesThe CJI further said that the court feels that directing to conduct a fresh NEET UG exam for this year will be fraught with serious consequences, which will have to be borne by more than 24 lakh students appearing in this exam and will cause disruption in the admission program, as well as have a wide impact on the syllabus of medical education, will affect the availability of qualified doctors in future and will be seriously detrimental to the disadvantaged group for which reservation was made in the allocation of seats.The court in its order clarified the situation regarding the question, for which two answers were considered correct and given marks on the basis of new and old syllabus. The court said that the IIT report has accepted that option number 4 is correct, we accept the IIT report.
The court accepted that the paper was leakedThe CJI said that the arguments have been heard for more than 4 days. We have heard all the parties including CBI officer Krishna. We hold that there is no dispute that the NEET UG 2024 paper was leaked in Hazaribagh and Patna. After the investigation in the case was handed over to the CBI, the CBI has filed its status report dated July 10. The court, in its interim order, had sought affidavits from the NTA, the Center and the CBI, considering the main issues. The role of the CBI has come to the fore after the FIRs in Delhi, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Bihar, Jharkhand were transferred to the CBI.
- The CJI said, the court has independently examined the data placed on record by the NTA. At the present stage there is a lack of evidence or material on record. From this it can be concluded that the result of the examination has been vitiated or there has been a systemic violation of the sanctity of the examination.
- The Supreme Court said that the NTA will have to declare the complete result of the NEET exam again.
- The Supreme Court said, there will be no re-examination for NEET-UG 2024 but 13 lakh students will face a reshuffle in their rankings. IIT-D has given one of the two options approved by NTA for the atomic theory question.
- While hearing the case, the CJI said, would it be fair to say that some material related to the paper leak has gone out of Hazaribagh and Patna? Assuming this, should we cancel the exam today?
- The court said, if we order a re-examination, then the students should know that they will have to start preparing. If we do not do this, then they have the right to know this too. We cannot keep the students hanging.
- CJI DY Chandrachud said during the hearing, the committee constituted under the chairmanship of the Director of IIT Delhi has submitted its report. In this, the answer to the controversial question is 'D'.