NEET UG was not compromised by unfair means or leak of documents

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Synopsis

The National Testing Agency, which conducted the NEET UG, 2024 on May 5, told the Supreme Court that the entire examination was conducted fairly and with due confidentiality without any illegal practices.

In an affidavit filed in an interim petition by Vanshika Yadav, the agency, through its director Binod Kumar Sahu, said the present case is not a case where the entire examination process conducted at 4,750 centres in 571 cities (including 14 cities abroad) suffered systematic failure as it was not vitiated by all the pervasive factors of unfair means or leakage of documents etc.

“Considering the sensitivity involved in the high-stakes examination like NEET (UG) 2024, verification of candidates at the examination centres has been done through Aadhaar authentication, with a view to curbing malpractices, such as identity theft,” he said.

As part of the various measures taken by the Union of India, a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the alleged malpractices during NEET (UG) 2024 is underway. It is submitted that any conclusive view as to whether there is systematic failure or not can be arrived at only after a thorough examination of all relevant factors, it said.

The NTA also said that if the entire examination process is cancelled without there being any tangible factors justifying such action, it would be extremely detrimental to the larger public interest involving the academic career of lakhs of students who attempted the examination fairly without any fault or even an allegation of fault.

Based on various security measures in NEET (UG) 2024, sixty-three (63) cases of unfair means (UFM) were reported to the NTA and the UFM Committee submitted its recommendations for appropriate action. The Committee after a thorough examination recommended non-disclosure of results of 33 candidates, exclusion of 22 candidates up to 3 years and declaration of results of 09 candidates. The NEET (UG) 2024 examination officials have also registered 13 FIRs in cases of unfair means at different examination centres, he said.

The agency also said that the allegation that the number of students getting good marks comes only from some centres is completely unfounded.

In this regard, the results of the top 100 candidates were analysed and it was reported that they are distributed across 95 centres located in 56 cities in 18 States/Union Territories of the country. This diverse distribution highlights the widespread participation and competitive spirit among students from different regions and educational backgrounds, he said.

The agency reiterated that the NEET (UG) examination process is not flawed and the results do not deserve to be cast aside as the career prospects of lakhs of students who have scored well on their own merits cannot be jeopardised due to a few sporadic and scattered instances of unfair means attempted by an identifiable number of people at identified locations which are minuscule and insignificant in the context of a very large number of deserving candidates who have scored well.

The agency claimed that the cases of alleged malpractice highlighted in the petition are limited to certain centres in two cities, namely Patna and Godhra.

“Considering that the other individual cases of unfair means adopted by some candidates are very few in number and have no correlation with the malfeasance referred to by the petitioners in the application. These cases of unfair means appear to have been committed through identity theft, etc.,” he said.

Such cases are detected by the examination officials at the examination centres and once reported to the headquarters, are dealt with strictly as per law. Such attempts are made in every examination by a few mischievous students and NEET (UG) is perhaps no exception to this practice, to the extent of a negligible number, he added.

The Supreme Court is likely to hear a batch of petitions seeking a re-test of NEET UG on July 8, i.e. today.

Case Title: Vanshika Yadav v. Union of India and Others