NEET UG 2024: Supreme Court orders NTA to publish marks of all candidates; questions necessity of re-exam

The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the National Testing Agency (NTA) to publish the marks obtained by all 23 lakh candidates who took the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test undergraduate exam (NEET UG) for the year 2024. .A Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra said that the marks should be published without revealing the identity of the candidates. "We direct the NTA to publish the marks obtained by students at the UG-2024 NEET examination, while, at the same time, without disclosing the identity of the students. The result should be declared city and centrewise by 12 noon on 20 July 2024 and shall be uploaded on the website of the NTA", the Court ordered.Pertinently, the Bench remarked during the hearing today that the leak of question paper of NEET UG 2024 prima facie seemed to be a limited one and not a widespread one on a large scale.Therefore, it expressed doubts over whether the Court can cancel the exam and order a reexam on the basis of such a limited leak.The Court remarked that going by the evidence and the timeline of events, it was unlikely that a mass leak had happened and it seemed that the wrongdoing was limited to two cities - Patna and Hazaribagh."The investigation by CBI will show us when they got the question paper. It will show - what is the time period of leak. The shorter it is, the lesser the chance of widespread leak.. As of now, we find that there is only wrongdoing that has taken place in Patna and Hazaribagh... Then the only thing we are only left with statistics, that 61 students got 720/720 ... Can we cancel an exam only on the basis of this? That's the point. Or is it something which falls short of the threshold that is required for the court to cancel an examination?" the Court asked.During the hearing of the matter on July 8, the Court had observed that there was no doubt that NEET 2024 was compromised but added that whether or not a re-exam would be needed would depend on the extent of the leak.It had then asked the NTA and the Central government to respond on the extent of the leak.The NTA and the Central government then filed affidavits maintaining that the leak was a limited one and that a fresh exam would not be needed.They reiterated this stance today.Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Central government, assured the Court today that the leak was limited and happened on the day of the exam on May 5 after 8 AM."The leak happened at 8:02 am. It (question papers) left bank at 7:30 am. The total students who got it will not cross 150 ... At every stage of the travel route, inspection and checks were done. The modus operandi of these team is that they give the papers to the ones who gave post-dated cheques. They did not want a mass leak at all. Otherwise, their efforts are wasted. This gang member in Hazaribagh sent the paper to another gang member in Patna through WhatsApp," the SG submitted.The Court said that it would like to examine the probe reports of Bihar police and the Economic Offences Wing (EOW). The Court will resume hearing the case on July 22, Monday."We will continue this on Monday at 10:30 am. We will like to see the Bihar police and EoW report," the Court said..The Court was hearing a batch of petitions relating to alleged irregularities including allegations of mass question paper leaks.Some of the petitioners have sought a re-exam on the said ground. Others have opposed a retest, saying that the leaks were individual aberrations and not widespread. On June 11, the Supreme Court ordered the NTA to respond to some of the petitions but refused to halt counselling for admissions of students to medical colleges..Hearing Today.During the hearing today, Senior Advocate Narender Hooda submitted that it would be difficult to separate tainted students from untainted students."We will show that in this case, you cannot separate tainted from the untainted students," he submitted."Yes, in that case the entire exam has to go.. but before we go into the authorities, you have to go into the core of the facts before us," the CJI replied.Hooda also questioned the results of data analytics relied upon by the Centre and NTA.He said that the data analytics, which was carried out by the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT Madras), took into account the 23 lakh students who wrote the exam when it should have taken into account only the 1.08 lakh students who qualified in the exam."They have conducted the data analytics is to run for 23 lakh students result.. then this data analytics running into half a page means every word is thousands of students. The correct process would have been to apply first to1 lakh students who qualified," Hooda submitted.He also pointed out that one of the directors at IIT Madras is a member of the governing body of NTA, thereby hinting at possible bias.Solicitor General Tushar Mehta countered the same by explaining,"But he is not a member of NTA. There are no members of NTA from IIT Madras now. Whichever institute holds the IIT-JEE exam, the director of that institute is an ex officio member of the NTA. 2024 IIT JEE exam was conducted by IIT Madras."SG Mehta added that there was no question of bias adding that the analysis was done city-wise and centre-wise. Meanwhile, Hooda argued that the data analytics study did not present a complete picture. He pointed out that two reasons were cited for the exponential increase in marks scored by NEET UG candidates this year, one being the increase in candidates and the other being the reduction of certain parts of the syllabus. However, he highlighted the study failed to consider that there was also an addition to the syllabus, and not just deletions. "There is no whisper that there was increase in syllabus that we have placed on record.. if not more, at least corresponding. So the reply is not giving a full disclosure for oblique reasons. If they are talking about deleting the syllabus, they should also take about increase also. I will show the increased part of the syllabus," Hooda said. .He added that the data analytics study does not capture the correct picture given the large sample size of 23 lakh students (instead of only analysing the scores of the 1.08 lakh students who qualified). "The data is too large, (abnormality) cannot be caught. Granular variations can't be seen with this large data," Hooda contended..Amid allegations that some students changed their exam centres in order to engage in malpractices, the Court also questioned the NTA on how many students changed their centres from their originally opted centre.The NTA counsel, Vardhaman Kaushik replied that the agency does not have those numbers."Some students using correction window change centres, but we do not get to know that," the NTA counsel said."So you do not have originally applied centre and the final appearance as such," the CJI asked"The system does not allow that as of now," the NTA counsel conceded.Hooda weighed in by recounting that the Rajasthan High Court had granted relief to one student by directing a correction window be opened for that student. However, the correction window was then opened from April 9 to April 10 for all students, he said. This led the CJI to ask the NTA why the same was done. SG Mehta explained that the NTA had received many representations from students. Hence, it kept the portal open for a couple of more days as a pro-student measure.The Court also sought information on how many of the qualified (1.08 lakh) students changed their centre, and how many of such students changed their centre to suspect centres such as those in Patna and Hazaribag..The Court's attention was further drawn to an apparent 300 per cent increase in the number of top scorers in 2024 when the figures from 2022 were compared. "Can this be indicative of any leak in the question paper," the CJI asked."It is indeed a red flag," Hooda replied.Hooda maintained that there was a systemic failure on the part of NTA in the conduct of NEET. Question papers were being transported by private couriers, he pointed out."(In one case) The papers were being transported in an e rickshaw in Hazaribagh. Instead of taking it to the bank, the driver took it to the Oasis school. The principal of Hazaribagh school has now been arrested by CBI. He was the NTA coordinator," he added.Hooda also pointed out how the question papers were doing rounds on Telegram.The NTA counsel countered that a video indicating that this leak took place was found to be doctored to show a wrong date. However, Hooda disputed this."Time (shown on a Telegram message) cannot be changed. This is example. This time they (NTA, Centre) are giving is not the time of receipt of the document but it is a watermark. We compared the real picture of question paper on Telegram to the actual one. It matches. Date and time appears as it appears in page 21. What they are showing is the watermark," Hooda said..The Court eventually observed that there are two likely scenarios. One is that the question paper may have been leaked before it was stored by bank lockers, in which case the leak would be before May 3. The other scenario is that the question paper was leaked while it was being transported from the banks to exam centres. "Going by NTA hypothesis, from 8:15 to 10:15 AM (on May 5), it is unlikely that leak happened, solved and students memorized it. So if it happened before May 3 and May 5, there is a long period of time," the CJI noted. The CJI added that it is highly unlikely that the leak would have been on a large scale if it happened on the day of the exam."If students got the papers after 10 AM ... Is it possible that from 9:30 to 10:15 they (others who were aiding the alleged malpractices) can solve the paper in 45 minutes and send it to students? The whole hypothesis that within 45 mins, there was a breach and entire paper was solved then within an hour seems very far fetched," the CJI said..[Read order]