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The Supreme Court on Tuesday turned down demands for cancellation of the NEET-UG 2024, saying that “at the present stage, there is absence of sufficient material on record to lead to the conclusion that result of the… examination stands vitiated or that there is a systemic breach to the sanctity of the examination”.
The Bench of Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra also asked the National Testing Agency (NTA) to revise the NEET-UG results by correcting the error of awarding marks for two options to a Physics multiple choice question, and asked it to treat only one — option 4 — as the correct answer.
On Monday, the SC had asked the IIT-Delhi director to constitute a team of three experts to look at the question and inform it of the correct answer.
Delivering its ruling on a clutch of petitions seeking cancellation of the exam, the Bench said: “We are of the considered view that ordering the cancellation of the entire NEET-UG 2024 examination is neither justified on the application of the settled tests which have been propounded in the decisions of this court, nor on the basis of the material on the record.”
“Adding to the absence of conclusive material on record at the present stage, the data which has been produced on record city-wise, centre-wise and the comparison for the years 2022, 2023 and 2024, is not indicative of a systemic leak of the question paper which would indicate a disruption of the sanctity of the examination,” it said.
The Bench said it “is also mindful of the fact that directing a fresh NEET-UG exam for the present year would be replete with serious consequences for over 2 million students who have appeared in the examination, including, in particular,
(i) disruption of the admission schedule for medical courses
(ii) cascading effects on the course of medical education
(iii) prejudicial impact on the availability of qualified medical professionals in the future and (iv) a serious element of disadvantage to the marginalised group of students for whom reservation has been made in allocation of seats”.
Saying that the CBI is still investigating the matter, the court made it clear that any student found to have been involved in malpractice would face action, and would have no right to continue his/ her admission.
“In arriving at the ultimate conclusion, the court is guided by the well-settled test on whether it is possible to segregate tainted students from those whose candidature does not suffer from any taint. Moreover, it would need to be clarified that if the investigation reveals the involvement of an increased number of beneficiaries than those who are suspects at the present stage, action shall be pursued against any student found to be involved in wrongdoing at any stage, notwithstanding the completion of the counselling process. In other words, no student who is revealed to have engaged in acts of fraud or to have been the beneficiary of malpractices would be entitled to claim the vested right or interest in the continuation of the admission in the future,” the SC said.
Pronouncing the brief order, the SC said: “In a matter like the present, it is imperative that the final conclusions of the court be recorded at the present stage since there is an urgent need to provide certainty and finality to a dispute which affects the careers of over 2 million students”. The Bench added that it will come out with a detailed judgment later.
“The fact that the leak of the NEET-UG 2024 paper took place at Hazaribagh in Jharkhand and Patna in Bihar is not in dispute,” it said. “Following the transfer of the investigation to it, CBI has filed its status reports dated July 10, July 17 and July 21. The disclosures by the CBI indicate that the investigation is continuing. However, CBI has indicated that at the present stage, the material which has emerged during the course of the investigation would indicate that about 155 students drawn from the examination centres at Hazaribagh and Patna appear to be the beneficiaries of the fraud,” it said.
“Since the investigation by CBI has not attained finality at the present point of time”, the SC said it had, “in a previous order, required the Union Government to indicate whether certain trends in regard to the existence of abnormalities or otherwise could be drawn on the basis of the results emanating from the 4,750 centres situated in 571 cities. Pursuant to the direction of the court, the Union Government has produced a report of IIT-Madras indicating the position on the basis of data analytics”.
The Centre, in its affidavit to the SC earlier, had said IIT-Madras had found “no abnormality” or “any indication of mass malpractice”.
The SC said the objections of the petitioners to the IIT-Madras report would be considered in the course of the reasoned judgment which will follow.
“At this stage, in order to obviate any controversy, the court has independently scrutinised the data which has been submitted on record by the NTA,” the top court said.
