NEET-UG row: 20 students move Supreme Court for fresh test; demand CBI probe into 'paper leak', 'irregularities'
New Delhi, June 15
Twenty MBBS aspirants have filed a fresh petition in the Supreme Court seeking scrapping of the NEET-UG 2024 examination and a top court-monitored probe by the CBI or an independent agency into alleged paper leak and irregularities in the test held on May 5.
The petitioners have also demanded a fresh test to be conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA), saying the sanctity of the examination was questionable in view of the confirmed cases of question paper leak, with respect to which FIRs have been lodged and several persons have been arrested, as per the media reports.
In view of “rampant irregularities and fraudulent practices”, re-examination would only help in short-listing deserving students to get admission in medical institutions, they contended.
The Supreme Court had on Friday issued notices to the Centre and the National Testing Agency (NTA) on certain other petitions seeking a CBI probe into alleged paper leak and irregularities in NEET-UG 2024 in which 67 students got a perfect score of 720 out of 720.
Asking the Centre and the NTA to respond to the petitions seeking a CBI probe into alleged paper leak and malpractices in NEET-UG 2024, a Vacation Bench led by Justice Vikram Nath had asked them to respond in two weeks.
It had also issued notices to various parties on NTA’s petition seeking transfer of cases pending in various high courts on the NEET-UG row to the top court to avoid multiplicity of litigation and posted the matter for further hearing on July 8 when other petitions on the issue would also be taken up.
However, the top court had refused to stay the counselling process for admissions to MBBS, BDS, AYUSH and other related courses in more than 700 government and private institutions across India even as it noted that sanctity of the examination had been affected and that it needed answers from the NTA.
Amid allegations of paper leak and other malpractices in NEET-UG 2024, the Centre had on Thursday scrapped the grace marks given on account of loss of time to 1,563 NEET-UG 2024 candidates for admission to MBBS, BDS and other courses.
These candidates will be given an option to take a retest on June 23 and the results would be declared by June 30, 2024 so that counselling likely to start from July 6, 2024 onwards was not affected, the Centre had said.
Around 24 lakh students appeared for NEET-UG 2024 examination conducted on May 5 by the NTA across 4,750 centres in 511 cities and 14 centres abroad for admission to MBBS, BDS, AYUSH and other related courses in more than 700 government and private institutions.
As many as 67 students got a perfect score of 720 out of 720 and some of the Rank 1 holders had the same sequence of roll numbers which raised suspicion of malpractice and irregularities.
The majority of them were from the same examination centres in Rajasthan (11), Tamil Nadu (8), Maharashtra (7), Haryana (6) and four each from Andhra Pradesh and Bihar.
In 2019 and 2020, there was one topper each while there were three toppers in 2021, one in 2022, and two in 2023.
A large number of students protested in Delhi on June 10 demanding a probe into alleged irregularities in NEET-UG 2024. They alleged that grace marks contributed to 67 students sharing the top rank.
The petitioners have demanded a court-appointed committee or any other independent agency to conduct “post-exam analysis including academic background check, forensic analysis and investigate all such candidates who have scored 620 and above”, under the top court’s supervision.
