NEET 2024 paper leak: Supreme Court issues notice to Centre, NTA over petition seeking CBI probe

New Delhi: Amid the raging row over the MBBS entrance test, NEET 2024 this year, the Supreme Court has issued notice to the Centre and National Testing Agency (NTA) on a plea seeking a CBI probe into allegations of question paper leak and other irregularities in the exam.

According to the PTI report, a vacation bench of justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta, which was hearing a PIL filed by Hiten Singh Kashyap, also sought responses from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Bihar government within two weeks.

It said the PIL will also be taken up with other pending ones on July 8, when the top court will start functioning after the summer vacation.

During the hearing, the bench took objection to a submission made by one of the counsels for petitioners that students in Kota were committing suicide. Remarking that the suicides in Kota were not due to NEET-UG 2024 results, Justice Nath said to the counsel, "don't make unnecessary emotional arguments here".

Insofar as the counsel pressed that petitioners were seeking CBI investigation into the alleged paper leak, Justice Nath observed that NTA's response on the same was necessary before any order was passed. "CBI investigation can be ordered ex parte today? Is that your submission?", the judge posed to the counsel, reports LiveLaw.

In response, the counsel highlighted that the petitioners were seeking other "imminent" reliefs as well, such as NTA furnishing details of entire examination pertaining to every candidate before counselling begins in July. "It's the future of 24 lakh students...", he urged.

"We understand that...we are conscious of all that", stated Justice Nath.

Aanother counsel for petitioners further submitted before the court that NTA obtained an order yesterday by concealing facts. "The NTA has not disclosed the qualified number of students and disqualified number of students. Instead of that, they have sought re-examination of the entire 1563, whereas, as per admission of the NTA, 790 are the students who qualified the exam and 773 are the disqualified even after obtaining the grace marks," he said.

In response, Justice Mehta asked the counsel to file his objections to the order, so they may be considered.

The bench also reiterated that it will not stay the counselling, adds Livelaw.

This year's NEET UG 2024 exam was mired in controversies after a paper leak scam was revealed in Bihar. 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.

Several pleas were filed in this connection against NTA alleging discrepancies in the NEET UG 2024 exam.

Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that NEET UG 2024 shocked many as 67 candidates secured AIR 1, multiple candidates from a single centre secured full marks and some also secured 718 or 719 marks out of 720 marks, which seems impossible considering the NEET marking scheme.

When NTA tried to defend the results saying that several candidates were issued grace marks to compensate for the loss of time during the exam, further questions were raised. Pleas were also filed against NTA before the Supreme Court challenging the policy of granting grace marks.

Amid the uproar, the Union Government's counsel yesterday informed the Supreme Court that the committee set up in this regard recommended withdrawing the grace marks of 1563 candidates and informing them of their original scores, obtained without the grace marks.

It has been proposed that these 1563 candidates would be given a choice of retaining their original scores (without grace marks) or appear in a retest, which will be held on 23rd June. The results of the retest will be published before 30th June, 2024 so that the NEET UG 2024 counselling could start from 6th July, 2024.

The other pleas filed before the Supreme Court in connection with the paper leak issues are listed for further hearing on July 8, 2024.