Was NEET-UG Sanctity Breached, Should There Be A Re-Test, Who Benefited From Paper Leak? SC To Answer

Even as the Supreme Court has deferred its verdict on contrasting petitions seeking a re-test of the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET-UG) and those who oppose it, big questions remain before the bench if the paper leak had any impact beyond its area of occurrence? Whether any candidate(s) was benefitted? Can beneficiaries be distinguished from others?

Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan met NEET-UG candidates — those seeking scrapping of the exam and others who are opposing it — at his residence in New Delhi on Thursday.

During the 30-minute meeting, Pradhan said to have assured the candidates that “no injustice will be allowed with students under any circumstances”. The Union government has presented its stance in the court that it is not in favour of a re-test and that rest is up to the SC to decide. “The government will take its next step after the court’s decision,” he said.

He also told students that the government is committed to holding fool-proof exams and that no such instance happens in the future.

The Centre has maintained its stance in the Supreme Court of not being in favour of a re-test on the basis of “unsubstantiated suspicions”, burdening around 24 lakh students. The Centre also told the court that it intends to start the counselling process (a system through which seats are allocated) for NEET-UG, from the third week of July in four phases. “If any candidate is found to have benefited from any irregularity, their counselling will be cancelled in any of the phases or even after,” it said.

The Supreme Court has been hearing a bunch of petitions filed post the announcement of results of NEET-UG on June 4 demanding scrapping of the test. The exam was conducted on May 5 at around 5,000 exam centres across India. Soon after the results, the test ran into allegations of irregularities and leaks at some centres including Patna, Jharkhand and Godhra.

What do the various petitions seeking re-test claim and what is the reply given to them?

Petitions Claiming Breach of Sanctity

A set of writ petitions go on to say that since there has been a leak, which cannot be denied, the sanctity of the exam has been breached and hence a re-test must be conducted.

In response to this, the National Testing Agency (NTA), which conducts the entrance exam as well as the Centre, in its final affidavit submitted in the apex court on July 10 said that a comprehensive analysis of the performance of top 1.4 lakh ranks (given the number of government medical seats in India is 1.1 lakh) shows “no abnormality in scores”. Also, it said that there is no large-scale malpractice or evidence of a local set of candidates benefitting.

NTA officials are learnt to have told the court that the supposed beneficiaries, who were involved in the leak, “could not benefit from it in the exam”.

The Centre had roped in the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Madras for the data analytics of the NEET-UG results, which was submitted in the top court. The analysis report stated that the distribution of marks follows the bell-shaped curve that is witnessed in large-scale examinations indicating “no abnormality”.

The report said that there is an overall increase in the marks obtained by students, specifically, in the range of 550 to 720. This increase is seen across cities and centres. This is attributed to 25% reduction in syllabus.

“Among the top 100 scorers, in Patna, where it is alleged that a question paper was leaked, has only two candidates in the top, with an increase of only one candidate compared to 2023. Similar trends are seen while we consider the top 500, 1000, 5,000 and 60,000 ranks in case of Patna, wherein the number of toppers have in fact reduced from that in 2023,” it said.

The analysis also stated that there is no spike in the number of candidates securing high marks in a particular centre in 2024 when compared with 2023, “which clearly indicates that there is no malpractice”.

The analysis was done using Python for data processing, PostgreSQL for data storage, and Metabase for analysis, it said.

Petition Claiming Leak on Telegram

Another writ petition claims that the paper leak also took place through social media app Telegram after a video surfaced with a photo of a question paper.

The NTA has told the court that the video in question allegedly shows a photo of the exam paper leaked on Telegram on May 4, but one image, which was edited, displays a timestamp of 17:40 on May 5 (the day of the exam), 2024. Additionally, discussions within the Telegram channel indicate the members identified the video as fake. The timestamp was manipulated to create a false impression of an early leak.

Hearing Deferred to July 18

The Supreme Court on Thursday was expected to come out with a verdict having examine the submissions made to it. However, the bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud noted that some of the parties had not been given affidavits filed by the Centre and the NTA and that they needed to study them before presenting their arguments. Also, the lawyer of one of the petitioners said that the CBI had to file a status report in the court, which was not submitted, which was also one of the reasons that the hearing had to be deferred.