NEET row: SC asks NTA to put results online

New Delhi: The Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, instructed the National Testing Agency (NTA) on Thursday to release the centre-wise results of the NEET-UG 2024 exam on its website by Saturday noon, ensuring the anonymity of candidates. The directive came amid allegations of malpractices during the May 5 examination.

"We direct the NTA to publish the marks obtained by students in the NEET-UG 2024 exam while masking the identity of the students... The results should be declared for each centre separately," the bench stated during the hearing of multiple petitions related to the exam.

The top court court said, "We want the identity of students be masked. You can have dummy roll numbers. But let us see it centre-wise what is the marks pattern."

The bench noted counsel for the petitioners have submitted that it would be appropriate if the result of NEET-UG 2024 examination was published on the NTA website so as to bring about transparency with regard to centre-wise marks obtained by candidates.

The court also ordered the submission of material collected by Bihar Police and its Economic Offences Wing (EOW) by July 20, highlighting the ongoing investigation into alleged irregularities.

The bench, which includes Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, further challenged petitioners to substantiate claims of systemic irregularities, including question paper leaks, which could potentially necessitate a re-test.

"Re-examination has to be on concrete footing that the sanctity of the entire test was affected," the CJI said.

The top court said it prima facie appeared that the question paper leak was limited to Patna and Hazaribagh, and nothing of this sort can be said to have happened in Godhra in Gujarat. In Patna and Hazaribagh, the question papers allegedly got leaked, while in Godhra there were claims that a person involved in holding the test took money for filling up the OMR sheets of certain candidates. The bench rejected the submission of the petitioners that they were handicapped as the CBI's status report filed in the court was not made available to them. "This is not a sealed cover procedure and we are all for transparency. What the CBI has told us, if it is revealed, probably the investigation may get scuttled. The investigation is going on as of today. The people will become wise," the CJI said.

"You (petitioners) will have to show us prima facie that the leak is systemic and has affected the sanctity of the entire exam so that we must cancel it," the bench said, adding, "What is worrying us is how much was the time gap between the breach (paper leak) and the exam." Senior advocate Narender Hooda, appearing for some of the petitioners, sought cancellation of the exam claiming "systemic failure" in holding it. He alleged transportation of question papers was compromised and that they were in the custody of a private courier company for six days in Hazaribagh. Shockingly, he claimed, they were transported in an e-rickshaw to an exam centre whose principal later got arrested for alleged involvement in the racket.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, asserted there was no leak of question papers.

The NEET-UG exam, taken by over 23.33 lakh students this year, remains contentious as the court continues to deliberate over the future course of action, stressing the social ramifications and importance of transparency in the process.

Questioning the claims about leak of question paper on social media platform 'Telegram', the bench said, "You have to bear in mind that the idea of somebody doing this was not to make a national charade. People did it for money. So, it was not to bring disrepute to the exam and somebody was doing it to make money which is evident. Mass leakage requires contacts also at that level so that you connect to all such key contacts in different cities."