The Supreme Court on Friday upheld the validity of the NEET-UG 2024 examination despite concerns over paper leaks, asserting there was no systemic breach of its integrity. However, it raised serious concerns in the conduct of the exam this year by the National Testing Agency (NTA) — specifically pointing to the use of e-rickshaws for transporting question sheets.
On July 23, a three-judge bench led by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud had in an interim order rejected demands for a retest and had said that it will give a reasoned judgement later. In the detailed verdict pronounced Friday, the bench, also comprising Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, said: “The information before us at this stage does not show that the question paper was disseminated widely using social media or the internet… The CBI investigation reveals the number of students who are the beneficiaries of the malpractice at Hazaribagh and Patna at this stage. This leads us to conclude that it is possible to separate the beneficiaries of malpractice or fraud from honest students. This being the case, the Court cannot direct a re-exam.”
The court also said that using e-rickshaws and private courier companies for transporting National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (Undergraduate) papers “raises concerns about the security and reliability of paper-handling procedures”.
The investigators had found negligence on the part of at least one courier company that used an e-rickshaw to ferry the question papers in Jharkhand’s Hazaribagh, the place where the leak allegedly occurred. The e-rickshaws were allegedly used to ferry question papers from the courier company’s office on the outskirts of Hazaribagh to the strongroom of a local bank, from where it was then taken to exam centres.
“…E-rickshaws are relatively unsecured and lack proper monitoring, making them unsuitable for the secure transit of sensitive examination materials. This method might be vulnerable to theft, tampering, and mishandling, posing a serious risk to the integrity of the examination process. Although no lapses on this count have emerged this year, the possibility of such lapses is enough to warrant a change in the mode of transportation,” the SC order said.
The court listed more issues in the manner the NTA conducted the examination, telling it to implement stringent security measures.
In one of the centres (where the alleged leak occurred), the rear door of the strongroom was opened and unauthorised persons were permitted to access the question papers. This indicates that there is a serious lapse in security…” the ruling said.
The NTA also did not specify a time by which the OMR sheets had to be sealed after the conclusion of the exam, which could lead to dishonest elements tampering with the sheets, it said.
“Yet another point of concern is that NTA relies on persons over whom it does not exercise direct oversight to be the invigilators for the exam,” said the court.
“All of these… indicate that the security protocols must be tightened to decrease the possibility of malpractice and fraud and to lessen access by private persons to the question papers,” it said.
Pointing to incidents of question papers stored in the Canara Bank vault being distributed instead of those stored in SBI to candidates in at least 12 centres, the court said: “This either indicates that the city coordinators were irresponsible and not fit for duty or that the information as to which question paper was to be distributed to candidates was not properly communicated to them”.
The bench said it is a matter of “serious concern” that the number of those who scored 720 out of 720 “fell from sixty-seven to seventeen during the course of the hearing”.
“The intervention of the Court, reports by the media, and representations by candidates ensured that these changes were made in the interests of fairness and justice. However, the system adopted by NTA should be such that just outcomes are reached even when these external catalysts are not present. The system must be such as to inspire public confidence”, said the bench.
The SC also termed as “most unfortunate…the lack of responsible decision-making with respect to the 1563 candidates who were initially awarded compensatory marks”, only to be withdrawn later and given a retest.
Investigations found that the leak allegedly occurred at Hazaribagh’s Oasis School — a NEET centre. School principal Ehsanul Haque and vice-principal Imtiyaz Alam are among those arrested in the case.
According to the CBI, which is investigating the case, one of the masterminds in the case was given access to the school’s strong room on May 5, the day of the exam.
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