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The Supreme Court on Thursday said that a re-examination of the NEET-UG 2024 could only be possible on a "concrete footing" that the sanctity of the medical entrance test has been "affected" on a large scale. Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud made the remark as a bench led by him began hearing over 40 petitions pertaining to the alleged malpractices and irregularities pertaining to the NEET-UG row.
The Chief Justice told senior advocate Narendra Hooda, representing the petitioners, that it must be made evident that the paper leak was "so systemic and affected the entire examination so as to warrant the cancellation of the entire examination".
"Merely because out of 23 lakh only 1 lakh will get admission, we cannot order a re-examination. Re-examination has to be on a concrete footing that the entire exam is affected," CJI DY Chandrachud said during the hearing.
The Supreme Court prioritised the NEET hearing over cases related to Google vs Competition Commission of India (CCI) and income tax returns, underlining "social ramifications" of the paper leak controversy.
The Chief Justice stated that "lakhs of students are waiting for an outcome in this matter" as the bench deferred the other cases.
CJI Chandrachud asked Hooda regarding the number of seats in both government and private medical colleges across the country. To this, the senior advocate informed the bench that the number stood at 1,08,000, and argued that in the case of a retest, there would only be as many aspirants instead of 23 lakhs who had appeared earlier.
The Chief Justice also sought answers from Hooda in situations if a candidate did not fall under the 1,08,000 "legitimately". To this, the senior advocate said that the remaining 22 lakh aspirants would "like to have a chance".
"We cannot order a re-exam merely because they want to re-appear. It can happen only if the sanctity of the exam has been affected," CJI Chandrachud said during the hearing.
The Centre and the National Testing Agency - conductor of the NEET-UG - have opposed the demand for a retest, stating that the alleged malpractices and irregularities are localised and did not hamper the sanctity of the entire medical examination.
Ahead of today's hearing, the central government had filed an affidavit, stating data analytics of the NEET-UG 2024 results conducted by IIT-Madras showed there was neither an indication of "mass malpractice" nor a localised set of candidates benefitting from the same and scoring unusually high marks.
The NTA also submitted an affidavit, on similar lines, saying its analysis of the marks distribution at the national, state and city level showed higher marks obtained by some NEET candidates were "not systematic failure". The exam body also said that the reduction of nearly 25 per cent of the syllabus helped the candidates score better in the examination.
