The Supreme Court in a recent order has dismissed a review plea filed against its July 23 judgment by which it had refused to order the re-test in NEET-UG 2024 exams saying that a re-examination cannot not be justified based on the material available on record.
A bench of CJI DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Maoj Misra rejected a plea seeking review of the judgement. The court also rejected the prayer to list the review plea in an open court.
The top court in July 23 verdict held that the fact that a paper leak in NEET-UG Exam took place at Hazaribagh and Patna is not in dispute.
CJI DY Chandrachud while dictating order said that the court realises that directing a fresh NEET-UG for the present year would be replete with serious consequences which will be for over 24 lakh students who appeared in this exam and cause disruption of admission schedule.
He further added that a re-test will also have a cascading effect on the course of medical education, impact on availability of qualified medical professionals in the future and seriously disadvantageous for the marginalised group for whom reservation was made in allocation of seats.
He further added that a re-test will also have a cascading effect on the course of medical education, impact on availability of qualified medical professionals in the future and seriously disadvantageous for the marginalised group for whom reservation was made in allocation of seats.
"Thus we are of the view that ordering cancellation of the entire exam is neither justified on application of settled principles propounded by this court on the basis of material on record," CJI said.
The top court took note of the CBI status report dated July 10, 2024 and July 21, 2024.
The order noted that the disclosures by CBI indicate that investigation is still continuing, however, CBI's status report at this stage indicate that around 150 students appear to be the beneficiaries of the fraud. The court said that since the investigation has not reached finality, this court had asked the Centre to show if any trends showed leak or red flag across Centre to indicate a widespread leak. Pursuant to which the Centre provided IIT-Madras Report.
"The court has independently scrutinised the data...At the present stage it is not possible for the court to arrive at a conclusion which shows that the results of the exam is vitiated. " CJI said while pronouncing verdict.
The court held that the data on record is not indicative of a systemic leak of the question paper which would indicate a disruption of the sanctity of the exam.
The top court further said that tainted students can be differentiated from the untainted studentsin this case and if the probe reveals an increased number of beneficiaries then action shall be taken against any such student at any stage not withstanding the completion of counselling process.
"No student who is revealed to have been in this fraud or a beneficiary would be entitled to claim any vested right in continuance of admission," the apex court said.
The court also directed the NTA to re-tally the exam result based on the correct answer to one 4 marker "ambigous question" in the NEET-UG exam of 2024, where the NTA gave marks to all students who either marked option 4 or option 2 as correct answer. One answer was correct based on old NCERT and another based on New NCERT.
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