NEET-UG 2024 | NTA denies leak; ‘no paper missing, no locks broken’, it tells SC
The Supreme Court bench hearing the case said on July 8 that it was clear that the question paper had been leaked
The National Testing Agency (NTA) has told the Supreme Court in an affidavit that no question paper of the NEET-UG 2024 exam was missing and no locks were broken in Patna, reiterating its stand that the question paper was not leaked.
“No question paper was found missing in any trunk. Each question paper has a unique serial number and was assigned to a particular candidate. No locks were found broken. The reports from NTA Observers did not report anything adverse. The CCTV coverage in the Command Centre were constantly monitored. No untoward incident or any pointer to paper leakage was observed,” said the agency in its affidavit.
Allegations of the question paper for the all-India entrance exam for medical education being leaked were first made in Patna, Bihar’s capital. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has so far arrested 8 persons in the Bihar case.
NTA’s response comes after the Supreme Court bench hearing the case said on Monday (July 8) that it was clear that the question paper had been leaked.
“One thing is clear that leak of question paper has taken place. If the sanctity of the exam is lost, then a re-test has to be ordered. If we are unable to identify those who are guilty, then a re-test has to be ordered,” said the bench including Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala, and Justice Manoj Misra.
The court also said that the extent of the paper leak and the beneficiaries had to be identified before it could order a re-test.
On the question of 67 toppers
On the question of why there were as many as 67 toppers who scored the perfect score of 720/720 in this year’s exam, the NTA told the SC in its affidavit that after the retest on May 23, the number of toppers came down to 61.
Six students at the Jhajjar centre had scored full marks because they were awarded grace marks for loss of time. However, after the retest, these 6 students could not score full marks.
Of the 61 toppers, the agency said only 17 candidates had scored full marks on the provisional answer keys.
The remaining 44 out of the 61 toppers achieved the perfect score after revision in an Answer Key of Physics.
Hence, the actual number of toppers with a perfect score of 720/720 without any revision in answer keys is 17, “which is not significantly higher in number than previous years”, said the NTA.
No indication of mass malpractice: Centre
The Centre told the Supreme Court on Wednesday (July 10) that there was no indication of mass malpractice or that a localised set of candidates had benefitted. It said IIT, Madras had conducted a data analytics test of the results of NEET-UG 2024, and its findings say that there was no abnormality in the marks distribution.
