Breaking| Apex Court Refuses To Cancel NEET UG 2024, Says No Material To Show Systemic Breach

The Supreme Court, today, has refused to cancel the National Entrance-cum-Eligibility Test-Under Graduate Exam, 2024 (NEET-UG, 2024) and said that cancellation will not be justified. 

Yesterday, i.e. July 22, 2024, the Court asked IIT, Delhi to constitute an expert/committee to evaluate the correct answer to the question for which the National Testing Agency has changed the answer according to old NCERT Books. The Petitioners have also concluded their submissions.

The Bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra ordered, "In the course of the judgment, at this stage in order to obviate any controversy, the Court will independently scrutinise, the data which has been submitted on the record...At the present stage, there is absence of material on record to lead to conclusion that result of the exam is vitiated or that there is a systemic breach of the sanctity of exam...No student who is revealed to have engaged in fraud or being the beneficiary of malpractices, would be entitled to claim the vested right or interest in the continuation of the admission...Thus we are of the view that ordering a retest of the...ordering the cancellation of the entire NEET UG 2024 examination is neither justified on the application of the settled tests which have been propounded in the decisions of this Court."

The Court also accepted the report of the IIT Delhi regarding the physics question for which NTA has changed the answer according to the Old NCERT. 

The Court said, "In this batch of cases, the central issue which has been urged before the Court on behalf of the Petitioners is that a direction should be issued for re-test, on the grounds (1) there was a leakage of the question paper (2) are systemic deficiencies in the modalities envisaged for the conduct of examination...During the course of the hearing, the Court was apprised of the fact that the 50th percentile represents the cutoff for qualification. The examination consists of 180 questions carrying four marks...The seats are allocated both among the general category and reserved category consisting of candidates belonging to SC, ST, OBC and EWS. The submissions on behalf of Petitioners were that the leak, which took place in the course of the NEET UG Examination, suffered from systemic coupled with structural deficiencies...By an interim order dated 8th July 2024, while flagging the principles issues in contention, this Court had called for disclosure on affidavit...The role of the CBI has been implicated because FIRs were registered in Delhi, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Bihar...Arguments have been heard for four days...Arguments have been concluded and judgment has been reserved. In a matter like the present, it is imperative that the final conclusions of the court, disclosed at the present stage should be recorded at the present stage...We proceed to record the essential conclusions in the following terms: 1) The fact that a leak of the NEET UG 2024 took place at Hazaribagh, Jharkhand is not in dispute. 2) ...CBI has indicated that at the present stage about 155 students have gone from the examination centres to the Hazaribagh and Patna to be the beneficiaries of the fraud. Pursuant to the directions of the Court, the UOI has produced the report of IIT Madras of data analytics..."

The Court said that any student, also included in the present petitions, who has any unresolved issue that has not been resolved by this judgment, it would be open to them to pursue their rights and remedies in accordance with the law. 

The Court has said that they have received the report of the IIT Delhi from the Director and that the expert team was of the opinion that option FOUR is the correct answer. "Statement 2 is incorrect because atoms of radioactive element are not stable. So NTA was correct in its answer key that the correct answer was option four.", CJI said.

Today, the submissions were made by the Union of India and NTA, represented by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta. He submitted the concept of 'percentile' in the examinations and explained various statistics reports showing the success rates, city-wise and centre-wise. 

SG said, "I will start with how the examination is started...There is a concept called percentile and there was confusion and that confusion remained. Unfortunately, the young children are unnecessarily tensed because of the wrong narrative...1) This year the number of students increased. 2) Maybe this year's batch of students was a little more hardworking. 3) The Syllabus was sliced down."

Referring to the famous web series 'Kota Factory', Mehta submitted that the centres like Kota, Sikar, Rajkot, Kottayam etc. are hubs of competitive exams and that is why newspapers use the term 'factory' for these institutions. "These students would have their hostels, those who can afford, they can have flats. There are PG accommodations. Their economy is on students. They are given question papers, and dummy question papers which would be formulated by these coaching classes. They are trained to appear in the Examination.", he added.

SG said, "There was an article recently in one of the leading newspapers that after results in Kota, the property prices and land prices have gone up. People buy property to rent or to use it for PG because Kota is doing well as compared to others...These all are high-ranking centres...Next, we have received several representations by e-mails that we are unable to register ourselves because of some technical glitch. Candidates being given an opportunity to compete, that does not lead to any inference even remotely of any wrongdoing...What was not pointed out to you lordships is out of total of 2350000, those who changed or used the window for the purpose of changing their centre are only 14,546. Out of approximately 24 lacs, only 14000 of them applied for change of city...now what will be the impact of these 14000, we have also examined that."

CJI asked, "You ask these students to furnish any reason or documents such as Aadhar Card?

SG answered, "Students have been studying classes there."

CJI then asked, "Do you ask for any documentation or any reasons?"

SG submitted, "There might be several reasons, coaching, parents are transferred, government officers, etc. There are varied reasons. But in the absence of any spike...because of the shift or transfer to two-three centres...not mere change of city may not lead to any cross-country manipulation."

SG explains how the OMR sheet and question papers are packed. SG said, "It is one-time tearable...we received a burnt paper where they were asked to memorize...every paper will have a unique number...What they did was from Oasis School, one person enters, he opens one of the trucks from behind. There are eight solvers and distributes questions to each ensuring that they do not carry any mobile. Now he doesn't want the paper to go beyond anyone who has not paid them...They burned the paper...but this piece remained unburned. That was recovered by Bihar Police and there is in the middle one number who had already complained that the paper which she received was sealed by using a lighter (which he used to reseal it)..."

An official from NTA appeared and submitted, "This serial number that is written on this half burned page is a unique number...if there are 24 lacs question papers being printed, there will be twenty-four lakhs of such different codes."

He further said that the paper was taken out from Oasis School and was being solved there and kept back. So it was replaced. An image was taken and sent to Patna at one school. So the paper travelled through Hazaribagh from Patna only to one school.

The official also showed the package with 24 question papers and said that this package was necessary to be signed and sealed by the centre superintendent. But they at Oasis School didn't do as they were part of the conspiracy.

CJI asked him, "So there is no evidence to indicate that the consequence was wider?"

The official replied, "No."

CJI asked, "What about the statements which were recorded by EOW? (Statement of Anurag Yadav)...Has that mobile of these scanned answer sheets been seized?"

The official replied, "No not yet, they have destroyed some of the gadgets and yesterday we recovered some of them."

CJI said, "Now we have to examine them forensically whether these were the same mobiles. Perhaps the FSL report will indicate whether this was sent only to Patna or it go somewhere else also."

The official added, "If WhatsApp chats are not deleted."

CJI remarked, "What is the nature of the forensic evidence, the transmission data...ON THE FACT THAT THERE WAS A LEAK, WE NOW KNOW THAT THERE WAS A LEAK. We are unsure about is what time the leak took place and to what extent was the leak."

Official informed, "We have CCTV footage of the main accused who has been arrested, right now in our custody, that he has accessed the strong room of the centre as per the footage between 8:02 and left around 9:23. The centre superintendent helped him, kept the door open."

CJI asked, "What was he doing for such a long time?"

The Official replied, "Because it has 7 layer packaging."

CJI asked, "How do we rule out that this Pankaj may have sent it to other locations also?"

Justice Pardiwala said, "So according to you, he was in that room for one hour and 20 minutes, he must have taken time to open the trunk from behind. He took out one question paper which unfortunately was given to that girl, then he clicked pictures on his mobile. From his mobile he forwards it to the solvers..."

The official replied, "Not to the solvers, but to his own counterpart."

CJI remarked, "So we have no forensic data to add, there will be electronic footprints that this was sent to this, this was sent to this number..."

SG referring to the report, said, "This is the original version, the question paper was uploaded on the 6th of May and 7th of May. They account was created on 6th May, and uploaded something on 7th. So if you see the screenshots, it would show that it was uploaded on 4th of May."

The Official from NTA demonstrated in person, how to open a telegram channel and upload documents backdated.

SG concluded, "These are the two conclusions at this point: 1) No evidence has come on record that the solved paper was circulated in any form randomly except the four locations 2) The total number of candidates who got benefitted from the stolen paper are around 55."

Several petitions were filed against the NEET-UG, 2024 exam, including Alakh Pandey alias Physics Wallah, alleging several malpractices and paper leaks and seekingdirections for cancellation of exams. Notice was issued in several petitions and all the matters were tagged together seeking a reply from the NTA.

On July 21, 2024, the National Testing Agency ('NTA') filed an additional affidavit addressing the issue in respect of Prof. V. Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras, orally raised by the Petitioners during the last date of hearing. The Petitioners alleged that the IIT-Madras report was not made based on complete data and there is a conflict of interest as the Director of IIT Madras is a Member of the NTA's Governing Body. NTA, in its additional affidavit, has denied the contention and submitted that the Director happens to be the ex-officio member of the General Body by virtue of IIT-JEE (Advance) Exam-2024 and the role of General Body is primarily confined to the "police making matters".

Previously, the Court had directed the NTA to publish the marks obtained by students along with their examination centres in the NEET-UG, 2024 before Friday i.e. July 19, 2024, while at the same time ensuring the identity of the students is masked. The NTA published all the data as directed by the Court on the portal on Friday.

Recently, the NTA has filed written submissions in reply to the note of the Petitioners/Applicants circulated by the Nodal Cousnel stating the list of dates of events and replying to the contentions.

The Centre has filed an additional affidavit stating that experts from IIT Madras in their analysis say that there is neither any indication of mass malpractice nor a localized set of candidates being benefitted leading to abnormal scores in the NEET-UG. The additional affidavit was filed in compliance with the directions issued on July 8, 2024, by the Supreme Court to answer several questions in the matters related to the NEET-UG, 2024 alleged paper leak and malpractices.

The Supreme Court had remarked that if the question paper was leaked in the NEET-UG, 2024 on social media or telegram channels, then it would be widespread, the integrity of the exam would be affected and such beneficiaries of the leak will have to be identified ruthlessly.

The NTA had filed a reply in the matter, stating that the candidates scoring full marks in the NEET-UG, 2024 was due to a reduction in the syllabus which was done to alleviate pressure. The Union of India had also filed a reply and said that in the absence of any proof of a large-scale breach of confidentiality in the NEET-UG, 2024, it would be irrational to scrap the examination.

The Court has also heard the petitions seeking CBI and ED probe in the matter.

The Court, on June 20, 2024, had also stayed the proceedings in various petitions filed across Rajasthan, Calcutta, and Bombay High Courts.

On June 14, 2024, The Court had also issued notice in the petition filed by the NTA seeking a transfer of pending petitions before various High Courts alleging the malpractices in NEET-UG. The Court, on June 13, 2024, had allowed the recommendations by the UOI and NTA, to conduct a re-examination for the 1563 candidates who were given compensatory marks in the NEET-UG, 2024.

Cause Title: Vanshika Yadav v. Union of India & Ors. (W.P.(C) No. 335/2024) and connected matters.