Centre Dismisses Allegations of “Mass Malpractice” in NEET-UG Exam, Supreme Court Told

The Indian Institute of Technology-Madras has submitted a data analytics report to the Supreme Court, ruling out the possibility of “mass malpractice” or a localized group of candidates benefiting from unfair means in the NEET-UG 2024 exam, leading to abnormal scores. The report was part of the Centre’s affidavit submitted to the court on Wednesday.

The National Testing Agency (NTA), which conducts the exam, has also filed a separate affidavit, denying allegations made by petitioners that 67 candidates scored perfect marks. According to the NTA, only 61 candidates achieved a perfect score of 720 marks, with 17 of them doing so based on provisional answer keys and 44 due to a revision in one answer key for the Physics subject.

The NTA explained that these 17 candidates were distributed across 16 centres in 15 cities, and their scores were not significantly higher than those in previous years. The agency also revealed that six of the 67 candidates who scored 720 marks did so due to grace marks awarded because of lost time at the Jhajjar Centre.

The NTA has also addressed allegations that the question paper was leaked through a Telegram channel, stating that the video was fake and had been manipulated to create a false impression of an early leak. The agency claimed that the timestamp was altered, images were edited, and the date was intentionally modified to suggest a leak on May 4.

Regarding the logistics and security features of the exam, the NTA stated that the movement of question papers was tracked in real-time, and transportation was done under CCTV coverage, with footage preserved. Any breach in security would be recorded and reported to the NTA, including the location, time, and stage at which it occurred.

The question papers were stored in safety deposit vaults of the State Bank of India and Canara Banks in the districts where the exam was held. The NTA also revealed that experts were invited to a restricted area in its office to prepare questions, with 140 subject experts participating in the exercise between August and December 2023. The work was sealed at the end of each day and returned to the experts the next day.

Ten subject expert moderators combined the questions into question papers between February 16 and 28, with a minimum of two fully independent question papers made. Subject experts were different for each subject question paper, and the question papers were solved by another nine subject experts who provided feedback. The exercise was held between March 1 and 7, and the question papers were printed in confidential press with logs maintained.

Translations of the questions were done into 12 languages by a team of 101 translators between March 8 and 31, and OMR sheets were printed elsewhere. Each OMR sheet had a unique number with a barcode, and the corresponding question papers were printed with the same serial number. Trucks carrying the papers had digital lockers with GPS trackers, which were opened 45 minutes before the exam in the presence of two invigilators and two candidates as witnesses.

Candidates opened the seal of the question papers at 1:55 pm on May 5, and no question papers were found missing at Patna and Hazaribagh, with no seals broken. There were no untoward incidents or pointers to paper leakage. The assessment of 17 candidates reported as suspicious by the Bihar police investigation, which has been taken over by the CBI, did not disclose much impact on the conduct of the exam, as their performance was moderate to below average.

The Godhra district administration and police had provided a list of 30 candidates, and their results have been withheld after issuing show-cause notices.