NEET Leak Row: SC Questions NTA’s Conduct, Issues Notices On Fresh Pleas
Apex Court says testing agency failed to learn from past controversy; Centre, CBI asked to respond on pleas seeking autonomous exam body
NEW DELHI, May 25: The Supreme Court on Monday sharply criticised the National Testing Agency (NTA) over the recurring controversy surrounding the NEET examination, observing that the agency appeared to have “not learnt its lessons” from the previous paper leak episode.
Hearing a batch of petitions linked to alleged irregularities in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET-UG), a bench comprising Justices PS Narasimha and Alok Aradhe sought responses from the Centre, the NTA and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on demands for replacing the current examination body with an independent and transparent mechanism.
The bench directed the NTA to submit an affidavit by Thursday detailing the steps taken to implement reforms and recommendations suggested earlier by a court-monitored committee constituted after the previous NEET controversy.
“It is unfortunate that despite earlier directions and recommendations, the situation has repeated itself,” the bench observed, while stressing the need for accountability and stronger safeguards in conducting national-level entrance examinations.
The court also ordered that copies of the petitions be served to Solicitor General Tushar Mehta and decided to tag together all similar pleas related to the issue.
One of the petitions, filed by the Federation of All India Medical Association (FAIMA) through advocate Tanvi Dubey, sought a complete restructuring of the NTA, alleging that repeated paper leak incidents had severely affected the rights and future of more than 22 lakh medical aspirants.
The plea argued that recurring lapses in examination security amounted to a serious failure of the system and demanded the creation of a robust and autonomous institution to conduct NEET-UG in a fair and transparent manner.
The Supreme Court also asked the high-level committee headed by former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman K Radhakrishnan to place on record the measures adopted so far to strengthen the functioning of the testing process.
FAIMA further requested the court to constitute a temporary monitoring panel headed by a retired Supreme Court judge, along with cybersecurity and forensic experts, to supervise any fresh examination process and prevent future breaches.
The NEET-UG examination, conducted by the NTA on May 3 for admissions to undergraduate medical courses across the country, was cancelled on May 12 following allegations of a question paper leak. The matter is currently under investigation by the CBI.
