SC pulls up NTA for ‘flip-flops’ in NEET-UG; orders Centre for complete restructuring of the exam process

The Supreme Court on Friday pronounced a scathing judgment pinpointing the “flip-flops” of the National Testing Agency (NTA) in the conduct of the undergraduate National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test 2024 and put the government on a deadline to completely restructure the exam process.

In a detailed verdict, a three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud directed the Centre, acting through its high-powered committee headed by former Indian Space Research Organisation Chairperson K. Radhakrishnan, to recommend and implement top-to-bottom overhauling of the exam process, including security improvements, data protection measures, periodic audits, surprise inspections of exam centres, grievance redressal mechanisms for students and foolproof logistics while specifically highlighting how question papers were transported in e-rickshaw to some exam centres during NEET-UG 2024.

Chief Justice Chandrachud, who authored the judgment, said the mishaps orchestrated by the NTA was a “luxury” students cannot afford. 

“The Centre has to restructure the whole process of the NEET through the high-powered committee. It has to see to it that we do not have further such examples in the future,” Chief Justice Chandrachud addressed counsel for the Centre and NTA led by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta.

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The court castigated the NTA for its “flip-flops”, which could have been avoided. “The NTA must avoid the flip-flops it has done in this case. These flip-flops of the NTA do not serve the interests of the students,” Chief Justice observed.

The court pointed to varying versions given by the NTA about when and where the question papers were breached, including that it was taken away by people who had breached the “rear door” of an exam centre.

The court pointed to how NTA initially gave 1563 students compensatory marks on realising that they were allotted the wrong question paper. This tax was later changed with the agency, on the advice of a committee, deciding to hold a retest for them.

The judgment then referred to the incident of NTA deciding to grant marks for two options to a Physics question in the NEET paper, reasoning that both answers were right. An Indian Institute of Technology (Delhi) team, on a request from the Supreme Court, later reported that only one of the two answers were correct.

“As a result of the NTA’s grace marks, an unprecedented 44 students got 720/720 in NEET-UG. The IIT(Delhi) report saw these 44 students lose marks and a revision of the rank list… There are deficiencies in the structural processes of the NTA… This Committee (Radhakrishnan panel) must rectify them,” Chief Justice Chandrachud directed.

Even while refusing to scrap NEET-UG 2024 on the ground that there was no “systemic breach”, a series of directions issued by the apex court to the government’s committee in the judgment highlight and spell out every single concern raised by petitioners about the security of the exam process in over 40 separate petitions.

The court expanded the ambit of the Radhakrishnan Committee to include improvement to the exam security and administration by introducing rigorous checks and balances at every stage from the setting of the question papers to the declaration of the final results.

The judgment ordered the framing of a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) detailing specific timelines to be set for various aspects, including registration of candidates, changes to preferred cities, sealing of OMR sheets after handing them over to invigilators, etc. 

It called for a process to review allotment of exam centres after petitions complained that there were instances of students inexplicably travelling from Godhra in Gujarat to Belgaum in Karnataka.

Addressing petitioners’ complaints of impersonation in NEET-UG 2024, the court called for a stricter procedure employing enhanced identity checks and technological advancements while complying with the laws of privacy.

The court highlighted the need for “comprehensive CCTV surveillance of exam centres, including real-time monitoring and recording of their activities. “The aim is to deter and detect any malpractices and provide evidence in case of incidents,” the judgment explained.

According to the CBI probe, the breach which led to question paper leaks in Bihar occurred in an exam centre, a private school, in Hazaribagh.

Steps should be taken to prevent leaks during critical stages of the exam. Importantly, the court said the committee should focus on the “viability” of transporting question papers in vehicles with locks and real-time tracking systems rather than e-rickshaws.

Keeping in mind the fact that investigating agencies, till now, had not been able to detect whether or not the intruder at the Hazaribagh school relayed the photos of the leaked question papers to other locations, the court called for placing systems to track the digital footprints of exam materials.

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“It could be digital watermarking and other tracking mechanisms which would trace the origin of the leaked documents and identify breaches in the electronic transmission,” the court recommended.