NEET UG 2024 paper leak: SC to hear batch of pleas on July 18, more than 40 petitions to be heard

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a batch of petitions on Thursday regarding the controversy-ridden medical entrance exam NEET-UG 2024, which was held on May 5.

According to the cause list uploaded on the apex court's website on July 18, a bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra would hear more than 40 pleas, including those filed by the National Testing Agency (NTA) seeking transfer of cases pending against it in various high courts on the NEET-UG row to the Supreme Court to avoid a multiplicity of litigations.

On July 11, the top court adjourned the hearing on the pleas, including those seeking cancellation of the exam, re-test, and probe into alleged malpractices in the conduct of NEET-UG 2024, until July 18, as some parties had yet to receive the responses of the Centre and the NTA.

The bench noted that it received a report from the Central Bureau of Investigation on the status of the investigation into the alleged irregularities during the examination.
In an additional affidavit filed in the apex court last week, the Centre said data analytics of the results of NEET-UG 2024 was conducted by IIT-Madras, which found neither any indication of "mass malpractice" nor a localised set of candidates benefiting from it and scoring abnormally high marks.

The government's assertion assumes significance in view of the top court's observations on July 8 that it may order a re-test if there were large-scale malpractices in holding the exam.

The Centre's fresh affidavit has said experts from IIT-Madras have found that the marks distribution follows the bell-shaped curve witnessed in any large-scale examination, indicating no abnormality. A bell curve describes the shape of data conforming to a normal distribution.
The affidavit said that for 2024-25, the counseling process for undergraduate seats would be conducted in four rounds starting from the third week of July.

The NTA has also filed a separate affidavit on similar lines and said it has carried out an analysis of mark distribution at the national, state, and city levels.
"This analysis indicates that the distribution of marks is quite normal, and there seems to be no extraneous factor which would influence the distribution of marks," the NTA said in its affidavit, which also gave details of the system in place for ensuring confidential printing of question papers, their transportation, and distribution.

While hearing the pleas on July 8, the top court observed that the sanctity of the NEET-UG 2024 had been "breached."
Saying that a re-test may be ordered if the entire process was affected, the bench sought details from the NTA and the CBI, including the timing and manner of the alleged paper leak and the number of wrongdoers, to understand the extent of the irregularities claimed by the petitioners.
More than 23.33 lakh students took the test on May 5 at 4,750 centers in 571 cities, including in 14 cities overseas.
In their earlier affidavits filed in the apex court, the Centre and the NTA said that scrapping the exam would be "counterproductive" and "seriously jeopardise" lakhs of honest candidates in the absence of any proof of a large-scale breach of confidentiality.

The National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test-Undergraduate (NEET-UG) is conducted by the NTA for admissions to MBBS, BDS, AYUSH, and other related courses in government and private institutions across the country.