NEET row: SC calls for Bihar Police report, orders NTA to upload centre-wise results

New Delhi, July 18 (IANS) The Supreme Court on Thursday sought a copy of the report of Bihar Police and its Economic Offences Unit (EOU) in relation to the NEET-UG question paper leak case. 

A Bench presided over by CJI, DY Chandrachud was hearing a batch of pleas alleging irregularities in the conduct of NEET examination and its cancellation.

“We would like to have a copy of the Bihar Police report,” the Bench, also comprising Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, told Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta.

At this, SG Mehta, the second-highest law officer of the Centre, undertook that he will place on record the copy of the report filed by Patna Police as well as the report filed by EOU of Bihar Police.

The NEET question paper leak case was cracked by Patna Police on May 5, the day of the examination and an FIR was registered at the city’s Shastri Nagar Police Station.

The case was later transferred to the EOU of Bihar Police for investigation.

On June 23, the Centre decided to transfer the investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

Adjourning the hearing till July 22, the apex court asked the National Testing Agency (NTA) to release on its website centre-wise results after redacting personal information, including roll number of the candidates by Saturday’s noon.

During the hearing, it asked the petitioners to illustrate that the leak was so systematic that the exam must be cancelled in entirety and conducted afresh.

The SC reiterated that if tainted cases cannot be segregated from untainted ones, the entire examination has to go.

The petitioners questioned the data analytics run by IIT-Madras saying that abnormality cannot be determined on the curves drawn on the basis of data of 23 lakh students, adding that the Director of IIT-Madras is a part of the governing body of NTA.

Explaining, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, said that Director of IIT-Madras is ex-officio on the governing body of NTA but he had deputed someone on his behalf to attend the meetings and the analytics has been conducted city-wise, centre-wise and at the pan-India level.

In the previous hearing, the apex court decided to adjourn the hearing on the joint request of the parties, noting that the CBI has put on record the status report in relation to paper leak allegations.

In its affidavit, the Centre told the top court that the data analysis conducted by IIT-Madras shows that there was neither any indication of mass malpractice nor a localised set of candidates being benefitted, leading to abnormal scores in NEET-UG examination held on May 5 this year.

“There is an overall increase in the marks obtained by students, specifically in the range of 550 to 720. This increase is seen across cities and centres. This is attributed to 25 per cent reduction in syllabus,” said the Centre, adding that candidates obtaining such high marks were spread across multiple cities and multiple centres, indicating very “less likelihood of malpractice.”

After a comprehensive data analysis using the parameters like marks distribution, city-wise and centre-wise rank distribution and candidates spread over marks-range, experts of IIT-Madras opined “no abnormality”, the affidavit said.

Earlier, the SC had directed the NTA to make full disclosure regarding the nature of the paper leak, the places where leaks took place, and lag of time between the occurrence of leak and conduct of examination.

It also asked the CBI to file a status report indicating the status of investigation and the material collected during the course of the probe.