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SC to hear arguments regarding NEET-UG 2024 on Monday

SC to hear arguments regarding NEET-UG 2024 on Monday

New Delhi: The Supreme Court is expected to hear on Monday a batch of petitions related to the controversial medical entrance examination, NEET-UG 2024, which was held on May 5.

The National Testing Agency (NTA) announced the results of the medical entrance exam per city and center on Saturday. The exam is riddled with accusations of paper leaks and excessive inflated grades.

According to the July 22 list posted on the Supreme Court’s website, a bench comprising Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra would hear over 40 petitions, including the NTA’s requests to transfer the cases filed against it in various high courts in the NEET-UG affair to the Supreme Court to avoid multiple litigation.

An analysis of data released by NTA showed that candidates who allegedly benefited from the paper leak and other irregularities did not perform well. However, some centres showed a high concentration of high-performing students, it found.

The voluminous data of over 32 lakh candidates from 4,750 centres was not released in a cumulative format but in a drop-down menu for each centre. The data was released on the direction of the Supreme Court, which is hearing several petitions over the alleged irregularities, while lakhs of aspirants await a final verdict on the fate of the exam.

The performance of the candidates from the centres under examination, such as Oasis School, Hazaribagh, Jharkhand, Hardayal Public School, Jhajjar, Haryana, Jay Jalaram International School in Godhra, Gujarat, was comparatively far below par.

On July 11, the Supreme Court adjourned the hearing of the petitions, including those seeking cancellation of the examination, re-examination and inquiry into alleged malpractices in the conduct of NEET-UG 2024, till July 18 as the responses from the Centre and the NTA were yet to be received by some parties.

The court had learned that it had received a status report from the Central Bureau of Investigation on the progress of the investigation.

In a supplementary affidavit filed in the Supreme Court last week, the Centre said that the data analysis of NEET-UG 2024 results was done by IIT-Madras. It found that there was no evidence of “massive malpractice” or a local group of candidates scoring abnormally high marks.

While hearing the arguments on July 8, the Supreme Court observed that the sanctity of NEET-UG 2024 had been “violated”.

The court has indicated that a fresh trial may be ordered if the entire process has been affected. Therefore, the court has sought further information from the NTA and the CBI, including the timing and manner in which the alleged papers were leaked, besides the number of offenders, to understand the extent of the irregularities claimed by the plaintiffs.

More than 2.33 million students took part in the test on May 5 in 4,750 centres in 571 cities, including 14 cities abroad.

The Centre and the NTA had argued in their earlier submissions to the Supreme Court that scrapping the exam would be “counterproductive” and “seriously endanger” hundreds of thousands of honest candidates unless there was evidence of large-scale breach of confidentiality.

The National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test-Undergraduate (NEET-UG) is conducted by the NTA for admission to MBBS, BDS, AYUSH and other related courses in government and private institutions across the country.

● A total of 23.33 lakh students appeared in NEET 2024. Out of them, 2321 students secured 700 or more marks. These students were spread across 1404 centres across the country and abroad. These 1404 centres were again spread across 276 cities and 25 states/UTs. Such a wide spread shows that many candidates who were not from the traditional education centres also made it to the top list of NEET 2024.

● It is true that many students coming from traditional education centres like Sikar, Kota and Kottayam were able to score 700 and above marks. However, the positive side is that many students coming from other cities also fell into this category. For example, 35 students coming from Lucknow, 27 students coming from Kolkata, 25 students coming from Latur, 20 students coming from Nagpur, 19 from Faridabad, 18 from Nanded, 17 from Indore, 16 each from Cuttack and Kanpur, 14 each from Kolhapur, Noida, Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar, 13 each from Agra and Aligarh, 10 each from Akola and Patiala, 8 from Davangere, 7 from Banaskantha, etc. were able to score 700 and above marks. It seems that aligning the NEET curriculum with that of secondary schools is starting to bear fruit.

Similar observations are available for other series of figures as well. For example, in NEET 2024:

o Candidates scoring between 650 and 699 are spread across 509 cities and 4044 centres,

o Candidates scoring between 600 and 649 are spread across 540 cities and 4484 centres

o Candidates scoring between 550 and 599 are spread across 548 cities and 4563 centres

A ranking of the NEET 2024 results shows the following:

o Candidates between ranks 1 to 100 are spread across 56 cities and 95 centres

o Candidates between ranks 101 to 1000 are spread across 187 cities and 706 centres

o Candidates between ranks 1001 to 10000 are spread across 431 cities and 2959 centres

o Candidates between ranks 10001 to 50000 are spread across 523 cities and 4283 centres

o Candidates between ranks 50001 to 110000 are spread across 546 cities and 4542 centres

o Candidates between the ranks of 110,000 and 150,000 are spread across 539 cities and 4,470 centres.

In NEET 2023, this spread was slightly smaller than in NEET 2024. In NEET 2023, we saw the following spread:

o Candidates scoring between 700 and 720 are spread across 116 cities and 310 centres

o Candidates scoring between 650 and 699 are spread across 381 cities and 2431 centres

o Candidates scoring between 600 and 649 are spread across 464 cities and 3434 centres