NEET-UG 2024: Leak may have happened well before May 5, says SC

The Supreme Court, which on Monday (July 22) commenced hearing on a batch of petitions related to the controversy-ridden NEET-UG medical entrance exam, raised concerns about the paper leak.

Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud suggested the leak might have happened well before the transportation of the question papers to the banks.

The Centre had earlier maintained that the leak occurred on the morning of May 5, the day the exam was held, and claimed it was limited to small areas in Bihar and Jharkhand. However, the CJI said today that if the leak took place on the night of May 4, it must have happened prior to the papers being secured in the banks.

“If the NEET paper leak has taken place on the night of May 4, it has not taken place in the vault of SBI or Canara Bank. The leak must have happened much prior to the transportation of the question papers to the banks," he observed.

Spread via WhatsApp

The top court was told by a counsel for NEET-UG aspirants that the National Testing Agency (NTA), which conducts the prestigious exam, has admitted to paper leak and the dissemination of the ‘leaked question paper’ through WhatsApp.

At the outset, the bench comprising Chandrachud and justices JB Pardiwla and Manoj Misra asked the counsel for the parties as to what emerged from the declaration of the centre-wise and city-wise results of the exam.

The hearing is underway.

Analysis of results

An analysis of centre-wise results released by the NTA on Saturday indicated that the candidates who allegedly benefitted from the paper leak and other irregularities had not done well after all. Some centres, however, showed high concentration of well-performing students, it revealed.

The voluminous data of over 32 lakh candidates from 4,750 centres was not released in a cumulative format but in a drop-down menu for each centre. The data was released on the direction of the Supreme Court which is hearing several petitions over the alleged irregularities as lakhs of aspirants await a final verdict on the fate of the exam.

The performance of the candidates from the centres under the scanner – such as Oasis School, Hazaribagh, Jharkhand, Hardayal Public School, Jhajjar, Haryana, Jay Jalaram International School in Godhra, Gujarat – were comparatively much below par.

Over 40 pleas

The Supreme Court bench is hearing more than 40 pleas, including those filed by NTA, seeking transfer of cases pending against it in various high courts regarding the alleged irregularities in the exam to the apex court to avoid multiplicity of litigations.

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

In their affidavits filed earlier in the apex court, the Centre and the NTA had said that scrapping the exam would be "counterproductive" and "seriously jeopardise" lakhs of honest candidates in the absence of any proof of large-scale breach of confidentiality.

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.