GG News Bureau
New Delhi, 23rd July. The Supreme Court on Monday directed the Director of IIT Delhi to assemble a team of three experts to determine the correct answer to a contentious exam question by Tuesday at 12 noon. This directive follows challenges from students regarding the National Testing Agency’s (NTA) decision to award marks for two different answers to the question.
The Supreme Court’s intervention comes amidst ongoing hearings on allegations of paper leaks and malpractices in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test-Undergraduate (NEET-UG) 2024. The case continues to be heard today.
Counsel for NEET-UG aspirants informed the court that the NTA admitted to a paper leak and the spread of the leaked questions via WhatsApp. A bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud, Justices JB Pardiwla, and Manoj Misra inquired about the results, which were released on a centre-wise and city-wise basis, as per the court’s previous directions.
The analysis of the results indicated that candidates purportedly benefiting from the leaks did not perform exceptionally well. However, certain centers showed a high concentration of top-performing students. The results for over 32 lakh candidates from 4,750 centers were presented in a drop-down menu format for each center, following the Supreme Court’s mandate.
Performance discrepancies were noted, particularly at centers under scrutiny such as Oasis School in Hazaribagh, Jharkhand; Hardayal Public School in Jhajjar, Haryana; and Jay Jalaram International School in Godhra, Gujarat, where candidates’ results were significantly below average.
On July 18, the Supreme Court had instructed the NTA to publish centre and city-wise results by noon on July 20, ensuring candidate identities were masked. The court sought to determine if candidates at allegedly compromised centers scored higher than others.
Over 23.33 lakh students took the NEET-UG test on May 5 across 4,750 centers in 571 cities, including 14 overseas locations. The Centre and NTA, in previous affidavits, argued against scrapping the exam, citing the potential harm to lakhs of honest candidates due to the lack of evidence of widespread confidentiality breaches.
NEET-UG, conducted by the NTA, is the entrance test for admissions to MBBS, BDS, AYUSH, and other related courses in both government and private institutions nationwide.
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