NEET Scam: Supreme Court Issues Fresh Notice To NTA Over Alleged 'Inconsistent Marks'

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday issued a notice to the National Testing Agency (NTA) in response to a petition filed by a learning app alleging rigging in the recent NEET-UG exams. The court has asked the NTA to reply to the notice by July 8, the date set for the hearing on the matter. 

The petition flagged serious concerns regarding the integrity of the NEET-UG examination conducted on May 5. The results, released on June 4, have been embroiled in controversy due to allegations of irregularities and malpractice. The petitioners assert that more than 1,500 students received grace marks, which has substantially impacted the overall rankings and the exam's fairness. Represented by a coaching center and other students, the petitioners are advocating for the student's right to access their Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) sheets.

Earlier this week, the CBI took over five new cases of alleged malpractices in the medical entrance exam NEET-UG that were being investigated by police in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Bihar, as the political storm intensified with the opposition trying to corner the government in Parliament on the paper leak issue.

In Maharashtra, Opposition members staged a protest on the premises of the Maharashtra Vidhan Bhavan as the monsoon session of the state legislature commenced today. The protesters, belonging to the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) comprising the Shiv Sena (UBT), Congress and NCP (SP), raised slogans against the government over the issues related to farmers and the NEET exam.

On Wednesday, a CBI team visited a school in Jharkhand's Hazaribag and quizzed its principal in connection with the alleged irregularities in medical entrance test NEET. The CBI team interrogated the principal of Oasis School Dr Ehsanul Haque, who was the district coordinator of the NEET-UG exam in Hazaribag, for several hours and took him to a Charhi-based guest house in Hazaribag where he and a few other persons were reportedly quizzed till late evening, sources said.

Sub-Divisional Police Officer (SDPO), Hazaribag Sadar, Kumar Shivashish said that they came to know about the investigation from other sources but they have not been officially communicated in this regard. Sources said that a 12-member CBI team reached Hazaribag on Tuesday evening. An eight-member team visited the school on Wednesday and some of the team members also visited the main branch of the State Bank of India (SBI) in the district, as the manager of the bank was reportedly the custodian of the question papers.

The bank had reportedly received the question papers sent by a courier service operator in an e-rickshaw, the sources added. The CBI team members, however, refused to divulge anything to media persons. They said that they would submit the investigation report to their headquarters.

Haque, while talking to media persons on Tuesday, had denied any tempering of question papers in Hazaribag and termed the allegations as baseless.

Earlier, a three-member probe team of the Economic Offences Unit (EOU) of Bihar Police on June 23 visited the school and inquired about the conduct of the test and the mechanism to open digital locks of question paper boxes.  On June 21, the Bihar Police detained six people from Jharkhand's Deoghar district in connection with the alleged irregularities in the medical entrance exam.

NEET-UG was conducted by the NTA on May 5 with around 24 lakh candidates taking part in it. The results were announced on June 4, but they were followed by allegations of question paper leaks in states such as Bihar, besides other irregularities.