Supreme Court Assures Students: NEET Retest Only if Entire Exam is Compromised

The Supreme Court has assured over 23 lakh students who took the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET-UG) on May 5 that it may order a retest only if the beneficiaries of the question paper leak could not be identified and the integrity of the exam was found to have been completely compromised. The court’s assurance came after a batch of over 50 petitions were filed by candidates seeking cancellation of the exam due to the paper leak and other irregularities reported from different states.

The bench, comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, heard the petitions and sought a report from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on its investigation into the NEET-UG question paper leak by Wednesday. The court emphasized that a retest could be ordered only if three conditions were met: the alleged paper leak was systemic, it compromised the sanctity and integrity of the entire test, and it was not possible to identify and segregate the beneficiaries of the fraud from the untainted candidates.

However, the bench clarified that it would not order a retest if the breach was confined to specific centers and it was possible to identify and segregate the beneficiaries. The court noted that the massive scale of the exam, conducted at 4,750 centers in 571 cities across India and 14 cities abroad, involving over 23 lakh students, made it impractical to cancel the exam.

The court also expressed surprise at the number of students who secured full marks, with 67 candidates achieving a perfect score of 720 marks, compared to just seven in the previous four NEET-UG exams. The bench asked the solicitor general, Tushar Mehta, whether it was possible to use data analytics to scrutinize the answer sheets of suspiciously high-scoring candidates to ascertain the spread of irregularities.

Mehta assured the court that the government was ready to disclose all material related to the incident, but insisted that the irregularities and paper leak were localized and did not compromise the integrity of the exam across the country. The bench asked the National Testing Agency (NTA) to inform the court about the action taken against those identified as beneficiaries of irregularities and the nature of the paper leak, including the places where it occurred, the time gap between the leak and the actual conduct of the exam, and the manner and spread of the leak.

The court also asked the CBI to place the findings of its investigation into all these aspects and NTA to detail the steps taken to identify the beneficiaries of the fraud and the modalities followed to order a retest for 1,563 candidates. The bench emphasized the need to set up a multi-disciplinary committee to lay down modalities and processes for conducting competitive exams, which would ensure the integrity of the examinations.

The court’s assurance has brought relief to the students who had studied hard and undertaken significant costs and efforts to appear for the exam. The bench has posted the matters for further hearing on Thursday, and the outcome of the investigation will determine whether a retest is ordered.