NEET-UG irregularities case: Petitioners, experts dissect today's Supreme Court hearing

Paper leak, inflation in ranks, mismanagement, affidavits — a lot was discussed in the Supreme Court today, July 18, regarding the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test - Undergraduate (NEET-UG) 2024 paper leak row.

The Chief Justice of India (CJI) Justice DY Chandrachud stated that any order for conducting the National Entrance cum Eligibility Test for undergraduates (NEET-UG) 2024 afresh has to be on the concrete footing that the sanctity of the entire exam was affected.

Now, the court has directed the National Testing Agency (NTA) to declare the results city-wise and centre-wise, masking the identity of the candidates, by Saturday, July 20. The next hearing has been scheduled for Monday, July 22.

Educationist Jayaprakash Gandhi, reacting to today’s SC hearing, said that the apex court should ensure that there are no loopholes when it comes to the NEET paper leak matter.

“The Supreme Court has shared strong remarks about the NTA and there is no doubt that there has been malpractice on a widespread level. Whether or not there will be re-NEET is still in question and it is a difficult situation for the students. But, as educationists, it is our request to the SC that it should make sure that the CBI enquiry and its report are completely taken into consideration before any verdict, even if it means that the counselling has to be held later. Students are losing their hope and the verdict should be such that it restores their faith in the system,” Gandhi shared.

IIT Madras report ‘unreliable’

During the hearing on July 18, the top court was informed by Senior Advocate Narender Hooda that the IIT Madras report cannot be relied upon.

Hooda, appearing for petitioners, even alleged that there is a conflict of interest since the IIT Madras Director Prof V Kamakoti is a member of the governing body of NTA.

Speaking on this development, Prof Vishal Vaibhav, an assistant professor at IIT Delhi who had previously spoken about contradictions in the IIT Madras’ report for NTA, said “IIT Madras' investigation is grossly incomplete and pseudo-scientific and does not rise to the level of any standardised test. My main objective was to get NTA to release the data and that is what has happened so, we see that as a very positive court order."

An analysis report by Prof Vaibhav, done for the petitioners in the NEET 2024 case, has also been submitted to the Supreme Court.

“NTA has not provided public access to the student’s score data in any usable format. Our task of carrying out an independent analysis would have been much easier if we had access to the data from the past years (say, the last five years) as well as the current year (2024). Our analysis can be repeated with the correct data set as and when provided,” Prof Vaibhav’s report stated.

No positive discussion on paper leaks?

While a number of petitions related to the NEET UG irregularities row were taken up by the apex court today, July 18, petitioners and involved parties expressed that several pointers regarding the paper leak were not raised.

The SC held a detailed discussion regarding the paper leak instances at Godhra in Gujarat, Patna in Bihar, and Hazaribagh in Jharkhand.

Dr Vivek Pandey, a health activist who helped the medical aspirants take their matter to the Supreme Court, opined, “There was no positive discussion in the courtroom regarding the paper leak because the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) report was not published. In the last hearing, EOU (Economic Offences Unit) officials were called but they did not appear. It means that we have no official information about what progress there has been in the paper leak case from May 6 till date. In the court, unnecessary issues were raised, such as grace marks, which have no relevance to the paper leak matter. It was misleading.”

Hooda, appearing for the lead petitioners, also submitted that the candidates suffering from a "handicap" since neither the CBI status report is shared with them nor the entire results have been published.

Meanwhile, Raj Shekhar Yadav, father of petitioner Riddhima Rao, said that the court’s decision to table the report by Bihar and the Economic Offence Unit (EOU) is a positive step.

“It has been a longstanding demand of parents that the report by Bihar and the Economic Offence Unit (EOU) police be shared with petitioners as well. The court has accepted this demand and now the report is to be tabled. This report is very vital in this case. We have been asking the NTA to be transparent about the data being shared with the court. Now, despite strong resistance from Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, the court directed that the data needs to be shared. We are still hopeful that justice will be delivered,” he shared.

Who are the victims?

Another argument that was presented in the Supreme Court today was that IIT Madras analytics based on 23 lakh students' performance is not reliable and that the analytics should have been done on the basis of one lakh eight thousand candidates who would get admissions.

However, this has attracted mixed opinions from the experts.

Sulochana, a PhD Scholar in Science Education who is researching on medical exams like NEET, said “The arguments seem to be focusing on the fact that the scam does not affect all 24 lakh students, but only the one lakh candidates who would get admissions. I personally believe that it should not be the criteria. The scam concerns everybody because every single student was promised a fair examination. Regardless of their own performance, they deserve a fair examination. Just trying to characterise the real victims of a compromised examination is a bit meritocratic and we should not engage in that.”

What to expect now?

The SC will continue hearing the petitions regarding NEET-UG irregularities on Monday, July 22.

The counselling process is to go on as scheduled until ordered otherwise by the Supreme Court.

Kapil Gupta, CEO of NEETPrep, said that no matter which way the SC verdict goes, it is necessary that the government comes forward with long-term solutions to curb malpractice in order to regain students’ trust.

“The important point is establishing the credibility of the exam and establishing the credibility of the NTA, it lies in shambles right now. My sense is that credibility is not going to come out of this SC hearing. It can only be restored after the matter is resolved and the government comes forward with specific steps in response to whatever they have gained from the situation,” he said.

Kapil added, “This size of the exam, which was conducted in almost 4,350 centres, is very susceptible to leakages, to malpractice. The exam needs to go online and there have been reports that there are strong considerations in this regard. They will have to come up with credible ways to reduce malpractices.”