NEET-UG 2024 | 'Conscious That It's About Future Of 24 Lakh Students' : Supreme Court Issues Notice On Plea For CBI Probe On Alleged Paper Leak

The Supreme Court today issued notice on pleas seeking CBI investigation into the alleged instances of paper leak and malpractices in the conduct of the NEET-UG 2024 exam on May 5 this year.

The vacation bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta tagged the cases with earlier petitions raising similar issues, which are listed on July 8. While the National Testing Agency was directed to file a response within 2 weeks, other respondents (Centre) were given time till next date of hearing.

During the hearing, the bench took objection to a submission made by one of the counsels for petitioners that students in Kota were committing suicide. Remarking that the suicides in Kota were not due to NEET-UG 2024 results, Justice Nath said to the counsel, "don't make unnecessary emotional arguments here".

Insofar as the counsel pressed that petitioners were seeking CBI investigation into the alleged paper leak, Justice Nath observed that NTA's response on the same was necessary before any order was passed. "CBI investigation can be ordered ex parte today? Is that your submission?", the judge posed to the counsel.

In response, the counsel highlighted that the petitioners were seeking other "imminent" reliefs as well, such as NTA furnishing details of entire examination pertaining to every candidate before counselling begins in July. "It's the future of 24 lakh students...", he urged.

"We understand that...we are conscious of all that", remarked Justice Nath, before saying that all arguments shall be raised on 8 July.

Notably, another counsel (for petitioners) submitted before the court that NTA obtained an order yesterday by concealing facts. "The NTA has not disclosed the qualified number of students and disqualified number of students. Instead of that, they have sought re-examination of the entire 1563, whereas, as per admission of the NTA, 790 are the students who qualified the exam and 773 are the disqualified even after obtaining the grace marks," he said.

In response, Justice Mehta asked the counsel to file his objections to the order, so they may be considered.

The bench also reiterated that it will not stay the counselling process, which is scheduled to begin in July.

The Court was dealing with seven writ petitions. One of these was filed by NEET-UG candidates Hiten Singh Kashyap and Palak Mittal, who also raised allegations of exam centre manipulations in the NEET-UG exam. As an example, the petitioners raised suspicions about students from states like Odisha, Karnataka and Jharkhand choosing a particular centre at Godhra, Gujarat.

"For example, in Panchmahal's Godhra taluka, Gujarat at least 16 students from distant States like Odisha, Jharkhand, and Karnataka allegedly paid Rs 10 lakh each to clear NEET and chose Center at Gujarat i.e. Jai Jalaram School as their center, despite being from other States."

Their plea mentioned that the Gujarat police has registered a case after a teacher offered to solve the NEET exam upon accepting Rs.10 lakhs. Similarly, an FIR has been lodged at Patna, Bihar, accompanied with a statement made before the Magistrate Court in Patna, indicating the existence of substantial evidence corroborating the NEET paper leak.

Reference was also made to various news reports suggesting the involvement of a ring leader in the paper leak racket, purportedly acquiring the NEET question paper for a staggering sum of Rs. 60 crores in the state of Uttar Pradesh.

Apart from these, the petitioners raised the issue of grant of grace marks by NTA. However, while dealing with another set of petitions, the Centre yesterday told the Supreme Court that the grace marks will be revoked and the 1563 candidates who were given such marks will be given an option of re-test.

In related news, the Supreme Court has sought response of the NTA on three other petitions raising the issue of paper leak. Those petitions are listed on July 8.

Case Title: Hiten Singh Kashyap and another v. National Testing Agency and Others | Diary No. 26722 of 2024 (and connected cases)