The Supreme Court on Thursday said any order for conducting the controversy-ridden NEET-UG 2024 afresh has to be on the concrete footing that the sanctity of the entire exam was affected. “Re-examination can only be on a concrete footing that the sanctity has been affected on a large scale,” said a bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud.
The bench, also comprising justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, commenced the crucial hearing on a batch of petitions related to the all-India medical entrance examination. The court adjourned the cases listed ahead of the NEET-UG pleas and said, “We will open the case today. Lakhs of young students are waiting for this, let us hear and decide.”
The SC asked the petitioners seeking cancellation, retest and a court-monitored probe into the alleged irregularities in the exam to show that the paper leak was “systemic” and affected the entire examination. On the issue of the ongoing probe, the bench said, “The CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) probe is on. If what the CBI has told us is revealed, it will affect the investigation and people will become wise.”
On paper leak allegations, IIT-Madras result analysis
Senior advocate Narender Hooda, on behalf of the petitioners, said they are faced with a handicap as the Centre and National Testing Agency (NTA) have not disclosed the whole results.
Talking about the data analysis of the results conducted by the IIT-Madras, Hooda said one of the directors is a member of the governing body of the NTA. “I’m saying IIT-Madras analysis cannot be relied upon,” he said.
Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta countered this statement by saying it is “factually wrong” as no member from the IIT-Madras is on the governing body of the NTA. “Subject to further verification, whichever IIT is organising the JEE (Joint Entrance Examination), the chairman of that IIT is an ex-officio member of the NTA. But, the director who prepared this report is not a member,” Mehta said.
The CJI then asked if the JEE 2024 was conducted by the IIT-Madras. To which, Mehta replied in the affirmative. “What role does NTA have in regard to JEE?” CJI Chandrachud asked.
“JEE-Main is conducted by NTA,” replied Mehta.
“IIT-JEE Advanced is conducted by whom?” asked the CJI.
“IITs. This year it was IIT-Madras,” the solicitor general said.
On inflation of marks
Hooda further argued that the NTA has given two major reasons behind the inflation of marks – one of which is with regard to the reduction in the syllabus. “But, they have not stated that there was an increase in the syllabus. They should disclose that there was an increase if there was a deletion as well; they are leaving us in the dark since they have the data and we don’t,” he said.
He added: “Inflation is admitted, leak is admitted, they are only trying to justify it.”
The CJI asked to look at the data available, following which the court analysed the report.
Hooda recounted an example of Hardayal School from Bahadurgarh, where he said what happened is “glaring”. “There were six people… the NTA never disclosed that the question paper taken from Canara Bank was distributed. There was no delay. The principal of the school is on record that they collected papers from SBI and Canara Bank. They arbitrarily gave grace marks,” he argued.
“They have not come clean on that. First, they said there was a delay in the distribution. When they were caught, they said we are having a re-exam and don’t go into the issue of grace marks,” he said.
Appearing for the NTA, advocate Vardhaman Kaushik said a total of 44 students were awarded grace marks for the questions with one extra answer, as per the NCERT booklet.
On the change in centre by candidates
The CJI then asked the NTA counsel about the number of students who changed their centre. To this, the agency said: “In the name of making a correction, they change centres. The possibility of centre change happens only during that process. We will never know of it. As of now, the system is unable to detect that.”
The NTA counsel said centres are allotted on the basis of permanent or current address. “We don’t have any specific option for change of centre. But, there’s an option to make a correction. In that correction window, there’s scope for changing the centre but only based on address,” it said.
“So, we don’t know how many students changed their centres during corrections?” the court asked, to which the NTA said: “15,000 students used the correction window.”
The bench then asked how many corrected the field of the centre and sought details of the period in which the correction window was open.
“When a candidate fills a form online, do they fill city or centre?” the court asked, to which the NTA counsel replied: “City.”
“So, the centre is allotted by the NTA. The centre then cannot be picked by a candidate,” the court said.
“Centre allotment is two to three days before the exam. So, no one knows which centre has been allotted,” the NTA counsel said.
What are the questions posed by the SC to the NTA?
- Is there data for candidates who changed their centres when the correction window was open?
- Out of the 1.08 lakh students, how many changed their cities?
- What was the distribution of the area where the students changed their centres?
- Was the choice of change in the centre concentrated around disputed areas like Patna and Godhra?
- Could students have changed their centres through fresh registrations allowed by the NTA on April 9 and 10?
- How did the NTA allow fresh registrations beyond one student (which was directed by the high court), which led to 15,000 more registrations?
- How many candidates out of 15,000 fresh registrations form a part of the 1.08 lakh students?
What have the SC, Centre and NTA said so far?
On July 11, the SC had adjourned till July 18 the hearing after observing that it has received a status report from the CBI on the progress made in the probe into the alleged irregularities in the conduct of the exam. In an additional affidavit filed before the SC last week, the Centre said data analytics of the results of NEET-UG 2024 was conducted by IIT-Madras, which found there was neither any indication of “mass malpractice” nor a localised set of candidates benefiting from it and scoring abnormally high marks.
The central government’s assertion assumes significance in view of the observations made by the court on July 8 that it may order a retest if there were large-scale malpractices. The fresh affidavit said experts from IIT-Madras found that the marks distribution follows the bell-shaped curve witnessed in any large-scale examination, indicating no abnormality. A bell curve describes the shape of data conforming to a normal distribution.
The National Testing Agency (NTA) also filed a separate additional affidavit on the similar lines and said it carried out an analysis of distribution of marks at the national, state and city level. “This analysis indicates that the distribution of marks is quite normal and there seems to be no extraneous factor, which would influence the distribution of marks,” the NTA stated in its affidavit, which also gave details of the system in place for ensuring confidential printing of question papers, their transportation and distribution.
More than 23.33 lakh students had taken the NEET-UG on May 5 at 4,750 centres in 571 cities, including in 14 cities overseas. The Centre and the NTA, in their earlier affidavits filed before the SC, had said scrapping the exam would be “counterproductive” and “seriously jeopardise” lakhs of honest candidates in the absence of any proof of large-scale breach of confidentiality.
The NEET-UG is conducted by the NTA for admissions to MBBS, BDS, AYUSH and other related courses in government and private institutions across the country.
(With PTI inputs)
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