Coaching Centres Playing Roles of 'Pied Pipers' in NEET Issue: Supreme Court
New Delhi: While considering the plea filed by a coaching centre alleging that the National Testing Agency (NTA) did not provide a mechanism to redress the grievances of the candidates regarding the evaluation of the OMR sheets in the NEET UG examination, the Supreme Court recently questioned the locus standi of a coaching centre to file a plea under Article 32 of the constitution.
Wondering what fundamental right of the coaching centre was violated to be entitled to file a plea under Article 32 of the Constitution, the vacation bench of Justices Manoj Misra and S V N Bhatti questioned its counsel senior advocate R Basant, "You are a coaching institute. How can you file a petition under Article 32."
The bench expressed its strong disapproval of the coaching centres getting involved with the students regarding the NEET-UG exam and was quoted observing by the Times of India, "We see the role played by the coaching centres as pied pipers. They have hardly any role to play in this case. Your duties end once coaching is over. If they have discharged the duty of coaching, that is the end of the matter. They have not further undertaken to see that they will have a role to play after the coaching is over."
Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that a learning app recently filed a plea before the Supreme Court against NTA accusing the agency of "inconsistent" calculation of marks on the NEET-UG 2024 OMR sheets.
Apart from raising concerns regarding the integrity of the exam held on May 5, 2024 and the claim that awarding grace marks to more than 1500 students significantly impacted the overall rankings, the plea also argued for the rights of the students to access their Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) sheets.
However, as per the latest media report by The Times of India, the Apex Court vacation bench questioned Senior Advicate R Basant as to which fundamental right of the coaching centre was violated to entitle it to file a plea under Article 32 of the Constitution.
At this outset, Advocate Basant submitted that even if the Court disregarded the coaching centre, there were four other students who filed a joint plea alleging that the OMR answer sheets had discrepancies in the evaluation and NTA did not provide any mechanism to address such grievances.
On the other hand, the counsel for NTA Vardhman Kaushik said that a batch of pleas alleging irregularities in the NEET-UG 2024 exam was being considered by the Apex Court and was listed for further hearing on July 8, 2024.
Although the bench asked NTA to file an affidavit detailing the mechanism to address these grievances of students regarding the evaluation of OMR sheets, it also expressed its strong disapproval of the coaching centres stepping in the NEET-UG issue along with the students.
"We see the role played by the coaching centres as pied pipers. They have hardly any role to play in this case. Your duties end once coaching is over. If they have discharged the duty of coaching, that is the end of the matter. They have not further undertaken to see that they will have a role to play after the coaching is over," observed the bench.
Meanwhile, opposing the allegation that the OMR sheets were not provided to every candidate who appeared in the NEET-UG, the counsel for NTA told the Apex Court that they have been uploaded on the website. Asking the NTA to file a detailed affidavit on the matter, the Apex Court bench tagged the plea with the bunch of matters to be considered on July 08, 2024.
This year's NEET UG 2024 exam was mired in controversies after a paper leak scam came to the light. Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that around 13 people, including four examinees and their family members, were arrested in Bihar for their alleged involvement in the paper leak of the NEET-UG exam. Patna police sources had previously claimed that the NEET-UG question papers along with their answers were provided to around 20 aspirants a day before the date of the exam i.e. May 5, 2024.
Then, the Economic Offences Unit (EOU) of Bihar Police, which took over the investigation, revealed that the brokers involved in the NEET paper leak scam took between Rs 30 lakh to Rs 50 lakh from each of the medical aspirants in exchange for giving them the question paper of the NEET UG 2024 question paper ahead of the examination.
Multiple pleas have been filed before the High Courts and the Supreme Court seeking an investigation into the alleged paper leak scam. Some of the pleas demanded the scrapping of the NEET UG 2024 exam and holding a retest. Meanwhile, during the case proceedings, NTA earlier decided to withdraw the grace marks awarded to 1563 candidates and hold an optional retest for those candidates. Those who did not opt for the retest were allowed to retain their original marks, without the grace marks.
The matter is now being investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Central Government on June 22, 2024, handed over the charge of investigating in the alleged irregularities in the NEET UG 2024 examination to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
"Certain cases of alleged irregularities / cheating / impersonation / malpractices have been reported. For transparency on the conduct of the examination process, the Ministry of Education, Government of India after a review has decided to entrust the matter to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for a comprehensive investigation," the Ministry of Education stated in a release.
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