NEET UG row: Don't want re-test, counselling from July third week, Centre tells SC

The Centre has constituted committee of experts to recommend conduct of transparent and smooth examinations.

Ahead of the Supreme Court hearing petitions on the alleged irregularities in NEET-UG, the Centre has submitted an affidavit in the court saying that it does not want re-test citing an analysis by IIT Madras which suggests there was no “mass malpractice” in the exam.

According to the Centre, the retest would burden nearly 24 lakh students who had appeared for the exam on May 5. The Centre said an exhaustive technical evaluation on data related to NEET-UG 2024 exam was conducted by IIT Madras and the analysis shows “no indication of mass malpractice”. According to the Centre, the data analysis shows that no local set of candidates benefited, leading to abnormal scores.

The Centre has said that it intends to start the counselling process for NEET-UG, which is the final stage for admissions, from the third week of July in four phases, according to NDTV. If any candidate is found to have benefited from any irregularity, their counselling will be cancelled in any of the phases or even after. The data showed that there is an overall increase in the marks obtained by students, specifically in the range of 550 to 720, and this rise has been seen across cities and centres.

The central government said it has constituted a committee of experts to recommend conduct of transparent and smooth examinations.

The Supreme Court on Monday said the sanctity of the NEET-UG 2024 has been “breached” and a re-test may be ordered if the entirety of the process is affected. It sought details from the National Testing Agency and the CBI including the timing and manner of the paper leak, besides the numbers of wrongdoers, to know the extent of its effect.

“Let us not be self-denial. Self-denial is only adding to the problem,” a bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud told the Centre and the NTA.

“One thing which is very clear is that the leak has taken place. That the sanctity of the exam has been breached is beyond doubt. The question is how widespread is the leak,” said the bench which also comprised Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra.

Earlier too, the government had said scrapping the 2024 exam in its entirety would "seriously jeopardise" the future of lakhs of honest candidates who had appeared for it.