NEET UG should not be cancelled; no proof of large-scale irregularities: Centre to Supreme Court

The Central government told the Supreme Court on Friday that the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (Under Graduate) exam (NEET UG) held on May 5 should not be cancelled since there is no proof of any large-scale breach of confidentiality in the exam..The submission was made amidst the NEET UG exam being caught in a storm of allegations including malpractices, mass question paper leaks and cheating. .In an affidavit filed before the top court on Friday, the Central government's Ministry of Education maintained that cancelling the NEET UG exam and hold fresh exam would not be rational. "In the absence of any proof of any large-scale breach of confidentiality in a pan-India examination, it would not be rational to scrap the entire examination and the results already declared. It is submitted that in any examination, there are competing rights that have been created whereby the interests of a large number of students who have taken the examination without adopting any alleged unfair means must not also be jeopardized," the affidavit said. The affidavit was filed in response to a slew of petitions alleging irregularities in NEET UG including leak of question papers. .The case is slated to be heard by a bench of CJI DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra on July 8.The Court will primarily examine whether the exam was compromised on May 5 and whether a re-exam would be needed. .The Centre has maintained that scrapping the exam in entirety would seriously jeopardize lakhs of honest candidates who attempted the question paper in 2024..The government clarified that it is not taking the present litigation in an adversarial manner and that it "fully appreciates" the concerns of the candidates who have taken the NEET UG 2024 examination. "Union of India in a matter such as the present one, has adopted a solution-oriented approach," the affidavit said..In this regard, the affidavit highlighted that government has ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to carry out a comprehensive investigation into alleged instances of impersonation, cheating and malpractices. The government also said that a high-level committee has been constituted to suggest measures for effective, smooth and transparent conduct of the examinations by the National Testing Agency. The Union government further added that a law to deal with cheating and paper-leaks of public examinations, the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024, has been brought into operation with effect from June 21..The National Testing Agency (NTA) too filed an affidavit taking a similar stance.The NTA submitted that cancelling the exam would be detrimental to public interest and that malpractices were only in Patna and Godhra centres, and individual instances do not have any link with the malpractices mentioned in the pleas..The NTA's data analysis has found that the individual malpractices have not affect exam's sanctity, it is added..On June 11, the Supreme Court had ordered the NTA to respond to the plea leveling allegations of NEET UG paper leak. Then too, the top court had said that it will not stop counseling for admissions of students to the medical colleges.Media reports also state that an extraordinarily large number of candidates got a perfect score as per the results published on June 4.The candidates have alleged irregularities in the award of compensatory marks to students for loss of time.