BREAKING| 'NEET Retest Only Option If Paper Leaked on Social Media,' SC Reserves Order Till Thursday

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday reserved the order and scheduled the next hearing for NEET-related pleas for Thursday. The top court heard consolidated pleas on NEET-UG exam irregularities and demanded to cancel the results and conduct a re-exam for all. The bench led by Chief Justice of India, DY Chandrachud, Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra heard a series of 38 petitions in the top court today. 

In the hearing, the CJI said, “If the NEET paper was leaked on social media, it is widespread. If it is proved that the paper was circulated on social media then retest would be the only option. We need to identify the beneficiaries. If it is possible to identify the beneficiaries, then a retest for only those can be conducted.” However, if the paper is proved to be leaked on social media, it would be impossible to identify the beneficiaries. In that case, the exam has to be cancelled and a retest for all is the only option, the CJI said. 

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“One thing is clear - leak has taken place. Question is, how widespread is the reach?” he said. “Court has been apprised that FIRs were registered in Patna, Delhi, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Jharkhand. Whether the FIR in relation to paper leak is confined to Patna is a matter which requires detailed consideration. The exam was conducted over a wide spectrum of nearly 23 lakh students. The law on whether a retest should be ordered in such situation is based on fairly settled parameters,” CJI said. 

Students from various states had filed petitions in Supreme Court as well as High Courts of  various states seeking cancellation of NEET-UG results declared on June 4 alleging paper leaks and widespread malpractices. The exam was conducted on May 5 in which over 23 lakh candidates appeared. The controversy sparked after NTA declared 67 candidates as toppers after giving grace marks to some candidates who experienced loss of time at the exam centre due to distribution of wrong question papers. 

However, the matter was challenged in the court and a re-exam was conducted for 1563 candidates who had got grace marks. Those who did not want to appear for the re-exam were given a revised scorecard after withdrawing the grace marks. The result of the re-exam was declared on July 1. 

Moreover, the accused arrested by Bihar police confessed that the NEET-UG paper was leaked. Several arrests were made in Bihar, Jharkhand, Delhi, Mumbai and Gujarat. Later, the matters were handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). CBI has arrested several accused in the NEET paper leak case and the probe is underway. 

As the paper leak was proved, candidates across the nation have been demanding to cancel the original result and conduct a fresh exam for all. However, NTA, in its affidavit filed on Friday said, that steps were taken as soon as the information of paper leak was received. But cancelling the exam is not appropriate. This would be a betrayal to promising students.

Last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the NEET paper leak issue in the parliament. During his speech on Motion of Thanks to the President’s speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the government is working on war-footing, to take steps to bring the culprits to justice. PM Modi assured the country that the government is taking critical steps to address the NEET exam leak controversy adding that those messing with the Indian youth's future will not be spared. "I will tell every student of the country, every youth of the country that the government is very serious about preventing such incidents and we are taking one step after another to fulfill our responsibilities on a war footing. Those who play with the future of the youth will not be spared at all,” PM Modi said in the parliament.