No U’khand NEET ‘leak’, assures CBSE

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 25

The Central Board of Secondary Education today allayed fears of a paper leak involving the all-India pre-medical test, saying the second edition of the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test for undergraduate medical and dental admissions (NEET-UG-II) conducted yesterday was free from malpractices.

CBSE officials spent the day investigating reports of an alleged paper leak from Haldwani in Uttarakhand and later said it was a case of unscrupulous elements cheating students by promising them admissions. Concerns over the paper leak were heard in the Lok Sabha this morning with BJP MP from Paschim Champaran Sanjay Jaiswal demanding a retest.

He cited reports on how students from Bihar, UP and Madhya Pradesh were holed up in a Haldwani resort that the local police raided only to find compromising materials in their custody. Nine persons were arrested, Jaiswal said.

“Why were students holed up in a resort? Clearly NEET II paper has been leaked for anything between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 50 lakh. I have returned from Patna where too I heard of NEET paper being available for Rs 10 lakh to Rs 30 lakh. Earlier NEET I paper was similarly reported to have been leaked in Varanasi, but we heard no statement on that from the government. 

In Haldwani, when the police raided the resort, the students shifted to Rampur. A paper leak racket has been busted and NEET-UG II should be held again. Lok Sabha has passed two Bills to make a uniform national medical entrance test constitutional and it is our responsibility to ensure the test is transparent,” Jaiswal said during zero hour.

Moments later, the Central Board of Secondary Education contacted the Haldwani police for details and later said nothing in the material seized matched with the NEET paper. CBSE officials privately told The Tribune that the Haldwani police jumped the gun and declared the racket bust as a paper leak without crosschecking with the board.

“The police gave us the seized material after 1 pm when NEET concluded yesterday. They made public statements about the alleged paper leak in the morning. The police assured us to rectify the error,” a CBSE official said, reiterating that the news of paper leak was false and far from facts. “We reassure all stakeholders that NEET-II was conducted fairly,” the board said. 

Last year, All India Pre-Medical Test (AIPMT) exam was cancelled after the Haryana Police arrested people for leaking the paper. NEET is in its first year and has been held in two editions — on July 1 and July 24 — on Supreme Court orders.