NEET-UG 2024 hearing LIVE updates | No ‘Mass Malpractice’, Centre tells Supreme Court

The Supreme Court will resume hearing today a batch of petitions related to the controversy-ridden medical entrance exam NEET-UG 2024 alleging irregularities and malpractices in the conduct of the May 5 test. A demand to conduct the exam afresh has also been sought.

A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) D.Y. Chandrachud while hearing the matter on July 8, said that the fact that questions were leaked, and the sanctity of the exam was compromised was “beyond question”. He however maintained that the decision to cancel the exam in its entirety would be an “extreme last resort” as it affected the lives of over 23 lakh students.

Watch: NEET paper leak: Scoring high but fearing the worst – students’ voices
The Bench also chastised the Union government and the National Testing Agency (NTA), which conducts the exam, to come out of the “self-denial” and aid the Court in finding out the extent of the leak. Accordingly, the agency was asked to file a detailed response on pointed questions from the Bench – including when and where the leaks were noticed first; the manner in which the questions were leaked and disseminated; the duration between the conduct of the leak and actual conduct of the exam on May 5; the steps taken so far to identify the beneficiaries of the leak; the modalities followed to identify these candidates; the number of students identified as beneficiaries.

Also Read: The allegations over NEET-UG 2024 | Explained

The Centre told the top Court on Wednesday that there was neither any indication of “mass malpractice” nor a localised set of candidates benefitting in NEET-UG 2024, referring to a data analytics report submitted by the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras. In a separate affidavit, the NTA said the total number of actual candidates whose final scores reflected perfect 720 marks was 61 only. The agency denied allegations of petitioners that 67 candidates scored perfect marks as “fallacious and incorrect”.

The National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test-Undergraduate (NEET-UG) is conducted by the NTA for admissions to MBBS, BDS, AYUSH and other related courses in government and private institutions across the country.