NEET-UG 2024 Exam Papers Were Leaked, Says Supreme Court

Whatever decision is taken in this case will impact the lives of nearly 24 lakh students and therefore, there needs to be enough clarity on the facts of the case, the Supreme Court said on Monday.

The court noted that it is now an admitted fact that the exam papers were leaked and that the sanctity of the exam has been compromised. How big the leak is is the next thing that needs to be ascertained, the top court said.

The court, however, clarified that ordering a retest in an exam of this magnitude should be an option of last resort. "Before ordering a retest, we should be conscious of the extent of the leak we are dealing with," the court said.

The court highlighted that certain questions need to be answered before a retest can be ordered.

Additionally, the court has also directed the National Testing Agency to apprise the court of the steps taken so far for the identification of the beneficiaries of the leak.

The court clarified that the law on whether a retest should be ordered is based on clearly settled law. It was noted that a retest will be ordered if it can be concluded that the leak occurred on a systemic level and that the breach has affected the sanctity of the entire examination process. The retest will also be ordered if it is not possible to differentiate the tainted results from the untainted ones.

The case has now been posted for a hearing on July 11, and in the meantime, the central government and the NTA will have to furnish their replies to the questions posed by the court.

After the NEET-UG 2024 results were declared on June 4, widespread allegations of irregularities and demands for a re-examination echoed across the country. Over 24 lakh candidates across 4,750 centres in 571 cities, including 14 overseas venues, took the examination.

When the NTA unveiled the results, a staggering 67 students had secured the top rank, including six from the same examination centre in Haryana. This immediately led to allegations of the inflation of marks.

Additionally, the NTA awarded grace marks to 1,563 students due to their lack of sufficient time to complete the test and a question that allegedly had two correct answers. The NTA came under scrutiny for this process of awarding grace marks, which followed a normalisation formula, as it did not proactively notify students of their grace marks at the time of award; instead, it acted in response to their protests.

On June 8, Subodh Kumar Singh, the director general of the NTA, said that the agency had decided to form a four-person, high-powered committee to revisit the grievances faced by 1,600 candidates across six centres and allay fears in the minds of 24 lakh students. However, he claimed that the integrity of the exam was not compromised.

Since then, grace marks awarded to these students have been cancelled and they have already been afforded the opportunity to either appear for a retest or accept their scorecards after the deletion of these grace marks.