The Supreme Court is set to hear several petitions alleging paper leak and malpractice in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for Undergraduate 2024 (NEET-UG) examination held on May 5, 2024. A bench of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra will hear the case on July 18.

On July 15, the apex court adjourned the hearing for Thursday, July 18, to enable the petitioners to file their responses to the affidavits filed by the Centre and the National Testing Agency (NTA). It was noted in the order that some of the parties in the case haven't received the affidavits filed by the Centre and NTA and they need to prepare their responses before arguments.

On July 11, the Central government filed an affidavit in the case denying any mass malpractice in the NEET-UG 2024 exam. Additionally, it said that the data analytics done by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras shows that there is neither any indication of mass malpractice nor a localised set of candidates being benefitted leading to abnormal scores.

Further, it said that counselling will be conducted in four rounds starting from the third week of July. "For any candidate, if it is found that he/she has been the beneficiary of any malpractice, the candidature of such person would be cancelled at any stage during the counselling process or even afterwards," the affidavit stated, ANI reported.

NTA's affidavit

In its affidavit, the NTA had also said that the video showing a photo of the NEET-UG exam paper leaked on Telegram on May 4 was fake. "The timestamp was manipulated to create a false impression of an early leak," it had added.

It said that NTA has carried out an analysis of the distribution of marks of candidates in NEET-UG 2024 at the national, state and city levels and also the central 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," it had submitted.

The apex court has seized a batch of pleas seeking direction to recall NEET-UG 2024 results and to conduct the examination afresh, alleging paper leakage and malpractices in the test held.