NEW DELHI, 11 Jul: The Supreme Court on Thursday adjourned till 18 July the hearing of a clutch of petitions seeking cancellation, retest and probe into alleged malpractices in the conduct of the NEET-UG 2024 as the responses of the Centre and the National Testing Agency (NTA) are yet to be received by some parties.
Amid the festering row over the all-India examination, the top court noted that separate affidavits filed on Wednesday by the Centre and the NTA, which conducts the test, have not been received by counsel for some of the petitioners.
“The further hearing shall be on Thursday (18 July),” a bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud said.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, however, said that they have served their affidavit to the counsel for the parties.
During the brief hearing, counsel for the petitioners sought listing of the pleas on 15 July, but Mehta said he would be unavailable that day.
The bench said that it has received a status report from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on the progress made in the probe into alleged irregularities in the conduct of the NEET-UG 2024.
In an additional the affidavit filed in the apex court on Wednesday, the Centre said that data analytics of the results of the NEET-UG 2024 was conducted by IIT Madras, which found that there was neither any indication of “mass malpractice” nor a localised set of candidates benefitting from it and scoring abnormally high marks.
The government’s assertion assumes significance in view of the observations made by the top court on 8 July that it may order a retest if there were large-scale malpractices in holding the exam on 5 May.
The Centre’s fresh affidavit said that experts from IIT Madras have found that the marks distribution follows the bell-shaped curve that is witnessed in any large-scale examination, indicating no abnormality. A bell curve describes the shape of data conforming to a normal distribution.
The affidavit said that for 2024-’25, the counselling process for undergraduate seats will be conducted in four rounds, starting from the third week of July.
The NTA also filed a separate additional affidavit on the similar lines and said that it has carried out an analysis of distribution of marks at the national, state and city levels.
“This analysis indicates that the distribution of marks is quite normal and there seems to be no extraneous factor, which would influence the distribution of marks,” the NTA said in its affidavit, which also gave details of the system in place for ensuring confidential printing of question papers, their transportation and distribution.
While hearing the pleas on 8 July, the top court had observed that the sanctity of the NEET-UG 2024 has been “breached.”
Saying that a retest may be ordered if the entire process was affected, the bench had sought details from the NTA and the CBI, including the timing and manner of the alleged paper leak, besides the number of wrongdoers to understand the extent of irregularities claimed by the petitioners. (PTI)
