Supreme Court: While hearing petitions seeking the cancellation of the National Entrance-cum-Eligibility Test (NEET) for the Under-Graduate (UG) 2024 over an alleged paper leak, irregularities and grant of grace marks over alleged ‘loss of time’, the three Judge Bench Dr. DY Chandrachud, CJI, JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra JJ. has said that there is no doubt that NEET UG 2024 was compromised by question paper leak. However, it would have to determine to what extent the exam was compromised, to decide whether a retest would be needed or not.
The Court said that “the consequence of that leak would depend on its nature. If it is not extensive, then there is no cancellation. Before we order a retest, we must be careful. We are dealing with the careers of 23 lakh students”.
The Court set out the parameter based on which it would decide whether a retest would be needed or not:
Whether the alleged breach took place at the systemic level;
Whether the breach is of a nature which affects the integrity of the entire exam process; and
Whether it is possible to segregate the beneficiaries of the fraud from the untainted students.
The following details were sought from the National Testing Agency (NTA) which conducted the exam:
When did the leak first take place?
What was the manner in which the question papers leaked were disseminated?
What was the duration between the leak and the exam on May 5?
The Court directed NTA to also inform about steps taken to identify beneficiaries of the leak, the steps taken by the NTA to identify the centres/ cities where the leak took place, and the modalities followed to identify beneficiaries of the leak.
The Court further directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to give a status report on its probe into the alleged leak and malpractices.
The Court also directed the Central government and NTA to inform about whether it would be feasible for the Government’s cyber forensics unit to use data analytics to identify suspicious cases, to segregate tainted from the untainted students.
The Court directed to provide these details by 5 PM on 10-07-2024.
The matter will next be taken up on 11-07-2024.
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Source: Press
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