Apex court indicts NTA for ‘serious lapses’ in NEET-UG

Satya Prakash
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, August 2
The Supreme Court on Friday indicted the National Testing Agency (NTA) for “serious lapses” in conducting the NEET (UG)-2024 that hit national headlines following a paper leak and other irregularities.
“In one of the centres, the rear door of the strongroom was opened and unauthorised persons were permitted to access the question papers. This indicates that there is a serious lapse in security and stringent and effective security measures must be implemented by the NTA,” a three-judge Bench led by CJI DY Chandrachud said, adding that “multiple occurrences in the conduct of the exam prompt the court to make these observations”.
The Bench, which also included Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra, said “the manner in which the NTA has organised the exam this year gives rise to serious concerns” even as it maintained that the integrity of the NEET was not vitiated at a systemic level.
Maintaining that it was cognizant of the fact that national-level exams with participation from tens of lakhs of students required immense resources, coordination and planning, the Bench said, “But that is precisely the reason for the existence of a body such as the NTA.”
The top court said, “It is no excuse to say that the exam is conducted in myriad centres or that a large number of aspirants appear for the exam. The NTA has sufficient resources at its disposal. It has adequate funding, time and opportunities to organise exams such as NEET without lapses of the kind that occurred this year.”
It also sought to highlight the fact that the question papers were sometimes transported in e-rickshaws and that the services of private courier companies were availed of.
The Bench, which had on July 23 refused to cancel the NEET (UG) held on May 5, expanded the remit of the Centre-appointed seven-member expert panel, headed by former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chief K Radhakrishnan, constituted to review the NTA’s functioning and recommend exam reforms.
Around 24 lakh students appeared for the controversy-ridden NEET-UG conducted on May 5 by the NTA across 4,750 centres in 511 cities and 14 centres abroad for admission to MBBS, BDS, AYUSH and other related courses in more than 700 government and private institutions to fill 1.08 lakh seats.
It said senior counsel Narender Hooda rightly pointed out on behalf of the petitioners that the NTA did not specify a time by which the OMR sheets were required to be sealed after the conclusion of the exam.
“In the absence of a stipulation in this regard, dishonest persons may tamper with the OMR sheets even after the candidates have submitted these and exited the exam hall. Another point of concern is that the NTA relies on persons over whom it does not exercise direct oversight to be the invigilators for the exam. There are various methods which may be adopted to ensure appropriate oversight over invigilators and decrease the likelihood of the use of unfair means,” it said.
“All of these issues indicate that the security protocols must be tightened to decrease the possibility of malpractice and fraud and to lessen access by private persons to the question papers,” it said.

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Seats sold for Rs 8-13 cr before NEET: Nadda

Defending NEET which has been in the news for all the wrong reasons, Health Minister JP Nadda on Friday said that medical Post-Graduate (PG) seats were sold for ~8-13 crore before NEET was introduced. “It had become an open business. When I was Health Minister, one post-graduate seat was sold for ~8 crore each and if you had to opt for a discipline like radiology, then it was ~12-13 crore,” he said.

Exam integrity not vitiated

• The Bench said “the manner in which the NTA has organised the exam this year gives rise to serious concerns” even as it maintained that the integrity of the NEET was not vitiated at a systemic level
• The court also sought to highlight the fact that the question papers were sometimes transported in e-rickshaws