NEET-UG 24 : Supreme Court Directs NTA To Publish Results Of All Candidates Centre-Wise Masking Identities

The Supreme Court on Thursday (July 18) directed the National Testing Agency (NTA) to upload on their website the marks obtained by all the students who appeared in the NEET-UG 2024, city-wise and centre-wise, after masking the identity of the students.

The NTA has been given time till Saturday noon to complete this exercise.

A bench comprising CJI DY Chandrachud comprising Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra passed the order while hearing a batch of petitions seeking to cancel the NEET-UG 2024 exam over alleged paper leak and malpractices.

While adjourning the further hearing till Monday, the Court directed the NTA to publish the results, after the petitioners complained that they are not able to ascertain the centre-wise marking pattern since the NTA had not published the results of all candidates.Senior Advocate Narender Hooda, appearing for the lead petitioners, submitted that the candidates are at a "handicap" since neither the CBI status report is shared with them nor the entire results have been published.

Taking this submission into account, the bench ordered :

"The petitioners have submitted that it would be appropriate if the results of the NEET-UG 24 exam are published on the website so as to bring about some transparency on the centre-wise marks obtained by candidates.

We direct the NTA to publish the marks obtained by students in the NEET-UG 24 exam while at the same time ensuring that the identity of the students is masked. The results should be declared in relation to each centre and city separately."

Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta vehemently opposed the direction to publish centre-wise results. However, the CJI orally said that there has been an admitted paper leak in centres of Patna and Hazaribagh. To ensure that whether the leak remained confined to those centres or had spread across other cities and centres, it was crucial to dissect the complete data of results. 

When the SG raised concerns about the breach of privacy of the students, the Court suggested that dummy roll numbers can be allotted to mask the identities. 

Though the bench initially directed the NTA to publish the results by tomorrow 5 PM, Senior Advocate Naresh Kaushik, for the authority, requested more time, since the results of over 23 lakh students have to be processed. Accordingly, the bench extended the time till Saturday.

The Court held a day-long hearing in the matter, raising several pertinent queries and making crucial observations. Live updates from the hearing can be read here.

Also from the hearing - NEET-UG 2024| Far Fetched To Say Leaked Papers Were Solved & Given To Students 45 Minutes Before Exam : Supreme Court To Union

Case Details : VANSHIKA YADAV Versus UNION OF INDIA AND ORS. W.P.(C) No. 335/2024 & connected matters 

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