THE SUPREME Court Thursday asked the National Testing Agency (NTA) to publish city-wise and centre-wise NEET-UG 2024 examination results of all 23 lakh candidates, masking their identities, on its website by 12 pm Saturday. “We direct the NTA to publish the marks obtained by students at the UG-2024 NEET examination, while, at the same time, without disclosing the identity of the students. The result should be declared city and centre-wise by 12 noon on 20 July 2024 and shall be uploaded on the website of the NTA,” a three-judge bench presided by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud ordered. The bench comprising Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra also questioned the Centre’s stand that the alleged leak of question papers in Hazaribagh had occurred just one hour before the start of the exam, and termed it far-fetched. “The whole hypothesis that within 45 minutes to an hour, not only was there a breach, but the entire question paper was solved…it is very far fetched…,” said CJI Chandrachud. Appearing for the Centre, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said while the results can be published, doing so centre-wise is riddled with problems. “There are coaching centres, there are several problems,” he told the bench, urging it to defer centre-wise publication. But the court persisted. “No…let it be done. We have to see the end of the matter by Monday,” said CJI Chandrachud, fixing it for hearing next on July 22. He said, “In fact the reason why we were engaging in a detailed line of enquiry is the fact that there was a leak at least in Patna and Hazaribagh… the question papers had been disseminated before the exam, that’s undoubted.” The question before the bench was whether the leak was confined to only two centres in which case there is no question of a retest, or whether this was more widespread. “The students have a certain degree of handicap because they would never have the kind of data which is necessary to prove,” the CJI said. On the Solicitor General’s submission about coaching centres, he said, “We are saying we want the identity of students to be masked. We don’t want students to be approached… But let’s see centre-wise what was the mark pattern… if the data does reveal something which has not appeared to us as laypersons, judges, they will assist us at least.” Citing the investigation conducted by CBI, Mehta said there was “no leak” as was being portrayed. He said a breach took place — and described the CCTV footage as showing someone entering the particular centre between 8.02 am and 9.23 am, and taking photographs. Drawing on the Centre’s argument that there was very little time after the alleged breach and the students were asked to memorise the answers, the CJI said, “That means prior to May 5 morning, somebody had solved the question paper.. If somebody had solved the question paper, certainly it doesn’t go to 5th morning. It has to go at least to the night between May 4 and 5 in which case the leak has occurred sometime prior to the night intervening May 4 and 5.” “There are two distinct possibilities. Either it gets leaked before the question papers are lodged in the custody of the Canara Bank and SBI which means the leak has taken place before May 3. The alternate hypothesis is that the leak takes place after the question papers are distributed from the banks and are bound for the centres,” Chandrachud said. The CJI said there were 180 questions and wondered how they were solved in the short time. If the students got the question papers at about 10.15 am, is it possible for someone to prepare answers and put it together for students in just 45 minutes, he asked. Mehta said they had an hour and the 180 questions were divided among seven problem solvers, each getting 25. Since the question paper for each candidate would be shuffled, the candidates were asked to memorise it, he said. So far, the investigation has been able to identify 18 students who were allegedly involved in the “breach”, he said. The Solicitor General said the person who went inside and took photographs has been arrested. “One gang member who was also at Hazaribagh sent it by WhatsApp (to Patna). Their model is not to allow students to take photographs…,” he said. The parents of the students allegedly involved gave post dated cheques which were recovered from the accused, he said.
