The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the National Testing Agency (NTA) to publish the centre-wise results of this year’s NEET-UG exam on their website, masking the identity of the candidates, by Saturday noon.
“We direct the NTA to publish the marks obtained by students in the NEET-UG 2024 exam while at the same time ensuring that the identity of the students is masked… The results should be declared in relation to each centre separately,” a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud said.
The court was hearing petitions seeking and opposing demands for a retest of the NEET-UG 2024 exams over allegations of question paper leak, apart from other irregularities in the results.
Appearing for the Centre, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said that while the results can be published, doing so centre-wise is riddled with severe problems. “There are coaching centres, there are several problems,” Mehta told the bench also comprising Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra.
He urged the bench to defer the centre-wide publication but the court did not agree. “No…let it be done. We have to see the end of the matter by Monday,” the CJI said, fixing it for hearing next on July 22.
“In fact, the reason why we were engaging in a detailed line or enquiry is, the fact that there was a leak at least in Patna and Hazaribagh…But there was a leak in the sense that…the question papers had been disseminated before the exam, that’s undoubted,” CJI Chandrachud said.
“Question which we are now wanting to consider is whether this was confined to only these two centres, in which case there is no question of a retest, or whether this was more widespread. The students have a certain degree of handicap because they would never have the kind of data which is necessary to prove,” the CJI added. On the Solicitor General’s submission about coaching centres, CJI Chandrachud said, “Therefore we are saying we want the identity of students to be masked. We don’t want students to be approached….But let’s see centre-wise what was the mark pattern. At the end of it…even if they fail, we will have the satisfaction and they will have the satisfaction of having done their duty. But if the data does reveal something which has not appeared to us as laypersons, judges, they will assist us at least.”
Courtesy The New Indian Express
