New Delhi, July 22 (UNI) The Supreme Court on Monday directed the head of the Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi to form a three-member expert committee to give their opinion on the correct answer to a multiple choice question in the physics section of the National-Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test-Under Graduate 2024, for which the National Testing Agency (NTA) awarded marks for two options.
A bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra directed the IIT-Delhi director that the expert opinion of the committee should be placed before the Court by Tuesday noon.
The Apex Court passed these directions after hearing a few petitioners challenging the decision of the NTA to treat two options as the correct answers to question number 29.
The Court also heard various other issues relating to the alleged paper leak and system failure in conducting the NEET–UG-2024.
The Supreme Court while hearing a batch of petitions alleging irregularities and malpractices in the conduct of the medical entrance exam, including a paper leak, asked the counsel for the parties as to what emerged from the declaration of the centre-wise and city-wise results of the exam.
The Supreme Court had during the last hearing directed the NTA to publish on its website the city-wise and centre-wise results of the NEET UG-2024 by masking the identity of the candidates.
Appearing for the petitioners, Senior Advocate Narender Hooda told the court that the city and centre-wise results published by the NTA were incomplete as they did not reveal the ranks of candidates and serial numbers of exam centres.
After the publication of the results by the NTA on its website on Saturday, many intervention applications (IA) were filed in the Apex Court, requesting a retest for the nearly 3.5 lakh top scorers in the test.
“Of the 24 lakh who appeared in the examination, 13 lakh have qualified. The total number of medical seats available is around 1,08,915,” a petitioner contended.
After the NTA made the NEET-UG data public it was revealed that 22% of the 264 candidates who appeared from the Delhi Public School (DPS) centre in Rewari, Haryana, scored over 600 marks, raising allegations of copying during the exam.
Earlier, the court had said that it was an admitted fact that paper leaks happened in Patna and Hazaribagh in Bihar. Both cases are still being investigated by the CBI.
The Centre and the NTA, however, urged that 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.
Hooda cited the example of a Gujarat student who did not do well in the Class 12exam board but did extremely well in the NEET-UG exam.
The CJI remarked, “Does a student at any point of registration have to submit proof of residence? Does a candidate apply for a centre or city?”
Hooda said that there is no rule that you have to show documents that you are a resident of the state where you wish to appear for the exam.
Certain private school centres are doing exceedingly well, Hooda said, both Kota and Sikar have an equal number of candidates, he added.
If we calculate the number of top centres in the country where students got over 650 marks, 38 out of 50 are only from Sikar.
When the CJI asked why Hardayal school students in Haryana got grace marks, Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta said, “Wherever the wrong paper was given and withdrawn later, grace marks were given for time loss.”
CJI then asked, “In Hardyal school, all students wrote the Canara Bank paper. Why were they given grace marks?”
Hooda said there was a systemic failure in Jhajjar, the NTA first said Canara Bank paper was distributed and evaluated.
They (NTA) later said no grace mark was given and the candidates were allowed extra time. In the Hardayal school, the student who got 719 marks was first at rank 68. After re-testing, the rank is 58,000.
