SC junks plea alleging Malpractices in NEET 2021
New Delhi: Rejecting a plea seeking a status report regarding the probe about instances of alleged malpractices in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test, NEET 2021, the Supreme Court recently observed that interference into the matter might create confusion and prove to be detrimental to lots of students who had appeared for the test.
"If we interfere, it will create a doubt. This will create a lot of confusion and will be detrimental to a large number of students. Sorry, we don't want to interfere," noted the Supreme Court bench comprising of Justices L Nageswara Rao and BR Gavai.
"We don't want to make any observations. If we observe anything, it might be taken out of context and will be understood in a different sense to create confusions", Justice Rao was further quoted saying by Live Law.
Such an observation came from the apex court bench as it was considering a petition by several NEET aspirants who had sought an investigation report in the FIRs registered over the alleged instances of malpractices in the medical entrance examination.
Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that alleging instances of cheating, malpractices, impersonation, and paper leak in the recently conducted NEET-UG exam, several candidates had recently approached the Supreme Court seeking cancellation of the test, and conduction of a re-exam.
While considering a similar petition the Supreme Court on October 4 had rejected the plea as it had observed that instances of impersonation and paper leakage cannot be reason enough for cancelling the exam, in which lakhs of candidates had appeared.
Criticizing the petition for being 'adventurous' the top court bench comprising of Justices L Nageswara Rao and BR Gavai had warned the petitioner of imposing costs and had observed, "Instances of impersonation and paper leakage cannot be to the detriment to the lakhs of students who have appeared for the exam."
However, a similar petition was pending before the Apex Court. The plea filed by Advocate Mamta Sharma had pointed out that on the day of the examination itself, CBI had registered FIR against 4 accused persons and unknown people and had stated that the examination procedure was manipulated using proxy candidates and a hefty amount upto Rs 50 lakh was charged by the coaching centers and solver gangs for this purpose.
As per the latest media report by Live Law, the petitioners had argued that from FIR itself it was evident that the NEET UG 2021 examination paper was leaked under a criminal conspiracy and several coaching centers and solver gangs were found to be involved in the process. The plea also pointed out that besides CBI, several State Police including Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra had also registered FIRs in this connection.
Arguing that the initial investigation had clearly revealed that the examination was irreversibly vitiated by use of fraudulent means and unfair practices, the plea had sought for the cancellation of the examination and re-conduction of the exam.
Apart from this, through the petition, the candidates also sought directions upon the Ministry of Education, NTA and NMC for enhancing the security protocol including biometric verification of candidates, use of jammers etc.
The petitioners had also sought directions upon the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), and the Director-General of Police of Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh for submitting a fact-finding report before the top court within a week along with relevant documents and findings.
Live Law adds that during the hearing of the case, the counsel for the petitioners, Senior Advocate Salman Khurshid submitted that he was not pressing for the prayers regarding the cancellation of the examination and re-conduction of the exam as similar prayers were rejected earlier.
He also clarified that he was only pressing for the prayer seeking a report on the investigation in the FIRs registered over the alleged malpractices in the concerned exam.
However, at this outset, the top court bench noted, "If we interfere, it will create a doubt. This will create a lot of confusion, and will be detrimental to a large number of students. Sorry, we don't want to interfere."
Following this, the counsel sought liberty for approaching the court with similar prayers later.
"We don't want to make any observations. If we observe anything, it might be taken out of context and will be understood in a different sense to create confusions", the court responded by observing this.
After this, the counsel for the petitioners sought liberty for withdrawing the petition.
Also Read: NEET 2021 Candidates Move SC Seeking Cancellation, Re-Exam
