New Delhi: The Centre has told the Supreme Court it would not be rational to scrap the entire NEET-UG 2024 examination, of which results are already declared, in the absence of any proof of any large-scale breach of confidentiality in the pan-India medical examination.
In an affidavit filed in the apex court, the Ministry of Education said that the Union Government is committed towards conduct all competitive examinations fairly and transparently. “It is also submitted that 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," said the affidavit.
The affidavit said that 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 jeopardised.
The Central Government said it remains committed to protecting the interest of lakhs of students, who attempted the question paper fairly. “Scrapping the exam in its entirety would seriously jeopardise the lakhs of honest candidates, who attempted the question paper in 2024," said the affidavit.
The Central Government said that the Ministry of Education has constituted a high-level committee of experts to suggest effective measures for conducting transparent and fair conduct of examinations by the National Testing Agency (NTA). The government said the committee shall make recommendations on reforms in the mechanism of the examination process, improvement in data security protocols and structure and functioning of NTA. The committee is headed by Dr K Radhakrishnan, former chairman, of ISRO and chairman of BoG, IIT Kanpur, and will submit its report in two months.
The affidavit said the committee has started its deliberations and already four meetings have been held and also started consultation with stakeholders’ especially students’ and has sought suggestions and ideas online till July 7.
A batch of 26 petitions is scheduled to come up for hearing before a bench comprising Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra on July 8. Several petitioners moved the apex court against the alleged discrepancies in the medical examination.
The National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test-Undergraduate (NEET-UG) is conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) for admissions to MBBS, BDS, AYUSH and other related courses in government and private institutions across the country. The NEET-UG, 2024, was held across 4,750 centres on May 5 and around 2.4 million candidates appeared in it. The results were announced on June 4 due to early completion of the answer-sheet evaluation. Allegations of irregularities, including paper leaks, led to protests in several cities.
In a separate affidavit, the NTA, reiterating the Centre’s stand, said that the cancellation of the entire examination would be hugely counterproductive and significantly harmful to the larger public interest.
Against the backdrop of malpractices by individuals at Godhra and a few centres in Patna, the NTA said it has assessed the performance of all the appeared candidates at the centres concerned to conclude as to whether any tangible impact of the malpractice at the centres has taken place to have widespread ramifications of impactable magnitude.
