NEET UG exam will not be held again, orders Supreme Court
The Supreme Court’s decision has come in the NEET UG-2024 paper leak case. The court has said that there will be no re-NEET-UG exam. Earlier during the hearing, the CJI said, would it be appropriate for the court to say that some material related to the paper leak has gone out of Hazaribagh and Patna, assuming that we should cancel the exam today. If we order a re-examination, then the students should know that they have to start preparing and if we do not, then they should also know this.
The Supreme Court said that we cannot keep the students hanging. Therefore, we have to finish the hearing today itself. The SG said that I will not take more than 20-25 minutes for the debate. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta is presenting arguments on behalf of the Center and NTA.
CJI reprimanded lawyer Nedumpara
The CJI reprimanded lawyer Nedumpara for speaking in between during the hearing. He said, I am warning you. You will not talk to the gallery. I am in charge of the court. Call the security and remove them. On this, Nedumpara said, I am leaving. The CJI said that you do not need to say this. You have no work here. I have seen the judiciary for the last 24 years.
The CJI said, I cannot let lawyers decide the procedure in this court. After this, Nedumpara said, I have seen it since 1979. On this, the CJI said, I may have to issue something which is not appropriate. After this the SG said that this is insulting. After this Nedumpara apologized to the CJI.
No option other than re-examination
He said, I am sorry. I did not do anything wrong. I was mistreated. Anyway, I am surprised by this debate. A criminal case is going on against us and we are discussing with the CBI. Ask any common man that the paper has been leaked. There is no option other than re-examination. It may be inconvenient but minimizing the inconvenience is the only solution.
CJI asked SG, have you formed a committee? To this he replied that we have a 7-member committee. Its chairman is former ISRO director Dr. K. Radhakrishnan.
CJI DY Chandrachud has said that the committee constituted under the chairmanship of the Director of IIT Delhi has submitted its report. According to the committee, the answer to the controversial question is ‘D’. In fact, the Supreme Court had directed the Central Government and the National Examination Agency (NTA) to tell the correct answer to question number 19 i.e. the physics question asked in the NEET UG exam.
IIT Delhi told the Supreme Court that its physics experts are of the opinion that only one option for a question “atoms are electrically neutral because they have equal number of positive and negative charges” is correct. The second option, “atoms of each element are stable and emit their own specific spectrum” is correct. NTA had decided to give full 4 marks to those who chose either of the two options correctly. About 9 lakh candidates had chosen the first option, while more than 4 lakh had chosen the second option.
3 experts from the Physics department examined the question
The bench headed by the CJI said that the report of IIT Delhi has been received, which states that IIT Delhi Director Professor Banerjee, a team of three experts from the Physics department examined the question, which found the fourth option to be correct. At the same time, when a lawyer raised a personal matter, the CJI said that those candidates who have personal complaints, we can ask them to go to the High Court. I don’t think it is the job of this court to look into personal complaints. We will separate those cases.
How many of the top 100 students were from the leaked center – CJI
Regarding the argument of the Solicitor General, the CJI asked that how many of the top 100 students were from the leaked center? On this, the SG said that he will give full information about it. There has been no widespread tampering in the NEET-UG exam because the top 100 candidates are from 95 centers and 56 cities. The petitioners have pointed to irregularities in some centers, but this is an issue related to 24 lakh students. The court will have to see whether the tampering has affected the entire country. The answer is that there has been no effect on the entire country.
The Supreme Court said that initially the wrong Canara Bank paper was given? The petitioner’s lawyer said that at some centers, question papers were also given in different language mediums, including Sawai Madhavpur, Rajasthan and Ghaziabad. On this, the SG said that there is no such information about Ghaziabad. The court asked when did this come to light? The petitioner told the court that the students in Sawai Madhavpur came to know about it on social media at 2.30 pm and this has been stated in the affidavit. The exam started at 2 pm, questions were given and students complained that this was not a paper for their medium, while NTA came to know about this at 4:30 pm on the same day.
AJG said that there is a percentile system in NEET and percentile comes after a calculation and in this exam the percentile was 50, which is 164 marks in this exam, while last year this mark was 137. This shows that the number of students has increased this year and this batch of 24 lakh students was more hardworking and the syllabus was reduced.
