NEET case | Centre, NTA trying new ways to stop NEET-UG retest: Petitioners’ lawyer

The Union government and the National Testing Agency (NTA) are coming up with new ways everyday to stop NEET-UG retest, the lawyer who is representing 20 petitioners in the Supreme Court, said on Thursday (July 11).

Advocate Dheeraj Singh is representing 20 medical education aspirants, who have filed a petition in the apex court seeking a direction to the NTA and others to conduct the NEET-UG test afresh.

Case in SC adjourned

“NTA has now taken a stand that there is no bungling… some new facts have come to the fore. First, they said 67 toppers, this was reduced to 61 after re-examination. And now, the new stand is there are only 17 toppers and the 44 others got 720/720 because they got compensatory marks for a wrong question,” Dheeraj told reporters in New Delhi on Thursday.

“Every day, the government and NTA are bringing new grounds and trying new ways to stop Re-NEET at any cost,” he added.

Dheeraj also questioned the NTA over its claim that a video on Telegram that allegedly showed the leaked question paper was fake.

“They have said it is edited. Our stand is that some information reached the students and they put it before the court. NTA saying that it is edited is not enough. They have not specified what their conclusion is based on. Did they check it sitting in their office or an expert decided it,” he said.

The lawyer’s remarks came after the Supreme Court on Thursday adjourned till July 18 the hearing of a clutch of petitions seeking cancellation, re-test and probe into alleged malpractices in the conduct of NEET-UG 2024 as the responses of the Centre and the NTA were yet to be received by some parties.

What NTA said

The NTA, in its latest affidavit filed in the Supreme Court, said it has found no proof of a paper leak, and the distribution of marks is “quite normal” and there is “no extraneous factor” after it carried out an analysis of distribution of marks at the national, state and city level.

“This analysis indicates that the distribution of marks is quite normal and there seems to be no extraneous factor, which would influence the distribution of marks,” the NTA said in its affidavit, which also gave details of the system in place for ensuring confidential printing of question papers, their transportation and distribution.

The Centre’s fresh affidavit said experts from IIT Madras have found that the marks distribution follows the bell-shaped curve that is witnessed in any large-scale examination indicating no abnormality. A bell curve describes the shape of data conforming to a normal distribution.

Over 23.33 lakh students had taken the test on May 5 at 4,750 centres in 571 cities, including in 14 cities overseas.

The National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test-Undergraduate (NEET-UG) is conducted by the NTA for admissions to MBBS, BDS, AYUSH and other related courses in government and private institutions across the country.