New Delhi, July 05
Scrapping the NEET-UG, 2024 exam in entirety would “seriously jeopardise” lakhs of honest candidates and not be rational in the absence of any proof of large-scale breach of confidentiality, the Centre told the Supreme Court on Friday.
The National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test-Undergraduate (NEET-UG), conducted on May 5 by the National Testing Agency (NTA) for admissions to MBBS, BDS, AYUSH and other related courses, has caused a huge uproar across the country over alleged irregularities like question paper leak and led to mass protests, political slugfest and filing of multiple pleas in courts. Responding to the pleas which have sought scrapping of the controversy-ridden exam, re-test and a court-monitored probe, the Union Ministry of Education said there was no proof of any large-scale breach of confidentiality in the examination which was taken by over 23 lakh candidates at 4,750 centres in 571 cities.
“It is also submitted that at the same time, in the absence of any proof of any large-scale breach of confidentiality in a pan-India examination, it would not be rational to scrap the entire examination and the results already declared,” the Centre said in its preliminary affidavit filed by a director of the Ministry of Education.
It said in any examination, there were competing rights, and interests of a large number of students who take it without adopting any unfair means must also not be jeopardised.
“Scrapping the exam in entirety would seriously jeopardise the lakhs of honest candidates who attempted the question paper in 2024,” the affidavit said.
It said the Centre was committed to protecting the interests of lakhs of students who have attempted the question papers fairly and after years of hard work, without trying to obtain any illegal advantage.
“Therefore, while genuine concerns based on proven facts must be addressed, other prayers merely based on conjectures and surmises, without any basis in fact, must be rejected so as not to cause unnecessary suffering and distress to honest examinees and their families,” it said.
The affidavit said there have been some alleged instances of irregularities, cheating, impersonation and malpractices during the exam, and premier investigation agency CBI has been asked to conduct a comprehensive investigation into the entire gamut of alleged irregularities.
