NEET-UG 2024: The apex court clearly stated in its decision that there is no evidence to show that the sanctity of the entire examination has been affected. The Supreme Court said that the fact that the question paper was leaked in Hazaribagh and Patna in NEET-UG 2024 is not a matter of dispute. With this, the Supreme Court clearly refused to cancel NEET-UG 2024 and conduct the examination again.
NEET-UG 2024 Supreme Court Hearing: The Supreme Court has given its verdict on the petitions related to the controversial National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) UG 2024. The apex court has refused to cancel the NEET-UG exam 2024. The Supreme Court said in its decision on Tuesday (July 23) that there is not enough evidence of flaws in the exam. The Supreme Court said that the demand to cancel the examination is not justified. The court said that there is lack of material to conclude that there has been manipulation in the result of NEET-UG 2024 exam or there is a systemic flaw in it.
No evidence found
The apex court clearly stated in its decision that there is no evidence to show that the sanctity of the entire examination has been affected. The Supreme Court said that the fact that the question paper was leaked in Hazaribagh and Patna in NEET-UG 2024 is not a matter of dispute. The Supreme Court said that it realizes that directing a fresh NEET-UG for the current year would be fraught with serious consequences, which would affect more than 24 lakh students appearing in this exam.
With this, the Supreme Court flatly refused to cancel NEET-UG 2024 and conduct the exam again. The apex court, while starting the hearing on the petitions related to the controversial NEET-UG 2024 exam, said that it has social ramifications. The bench said that in the interim order of July 8, 2024, while raising the main issues traditionally, this court had asked the NTA, the Center and the CBI to disclose.
The report received by the Supreme Court from the experts of IIT-Delhi on the controversy over the questions of Physics in NEET-UG 2024 states that there was only one correct answer and not two. The expert committee has clearly stated that there was only one correct option, which was option number four, the National Examination Agency (NTA) was correct.
Was the exam paper leaked on May 4?
Senior advocate Narendra Hooda, appearing for the counsel for the petitioners-students, told the Supreme Court that the statements of the investigation of Bihar Police state that the leak happened on May 4. Hooda said that we have presented a note based on the data. They admit the paper being leaked, they admit the circulation on WhatsApp. The material of Bihar Police shows that the leaked papers were given to the students on the 4th. The leak did not happen on the morning of May 5 as was reported.
Hooda said that his statement that the incident happened on the morning of the 5th is hard to believe and it is contrary to the report of Bihar Police. He said that the leak happened even before the question paper was deposited in the respective banks. That is, on May 3 or before that. Hooda said that it is not a peon who went to the paper room and gave it to 5-10 students. It was the work of some gang which has done this earlier also. Sanjeev Mukhiya and all the others have not been arrested.
Solicitor General said that Amit Anand is the middleman. He was gathering students on the night of the 4th so that they could get the paper on the 5th. Nitish Kumar was at the place where the paper was to be received on the 5th. After reading the statement, the CJI said that this shows that the students were asked to memorize on the night of the 4th, which means the leak happened before the 4th.
NEET online result released
On July 18, the Supreme Court had directed the NTA to declare the centre-wise and city-wise results of NEET-UG 2024 by 12 noon on July 20 while keeping the identity of the candidates confidential. The apex court had said that it wanted to find out whether the candidates who appeared for the exam at allegedly tainted centres got more marks than the candidates from other places.
The exam was held on May 5
On May 5, more than 23.33 lakh candidates appeared for the NEET-UG exam at 4,750 centres in 571 cities. These cities also included 14 foreign cities. The Center and the NTA had said in their affidavits filed in the Supreme Court that cancelling the exam in the absence of any evidence of large-scale privacy violation would be counterproductive and it would seriously endanger lakhs of honest candidates. NEET-UG exam is conducted by NTA for admission to MBBS, BDS, AYUSH and other related subjects in government and private medical institutions across the country.
