SC to hear on Monday pleas related to NEET-UG 2024

New Delhi: The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on Monday a batch of petitions related to the controversy-ridden medical entrance exam, NEET-UG 2024, which was held on May 5.

The National Testing Agency (NTA) had on Saturday released city- and centre-wise results of the medical entrance exam, which is riddled with accusations of paper leak and inordinate inflation of marks.

According to the cause list of July 22 uploaded on the apex court's website, a bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra would hear more than 40 pleas, including those filed by the NTA seeking transfer of cases pending against it in various high courts on the NEET-UG row to the Supreme Court to avoid multiplicity of litigations.

An analysis of data released by NTA indicated that the candidates who allegedly benefitted from the paper leak and other irregularities did not do well. Some centres, however, showed high concentration of well-performing students, it revealed.

The voluminous data of over 32 lakh candidates from 4,750 centres was not released in a cumulative format but in a drop-down menu for each centre. The data was released on the direction of the Supreme Court which is hearing several petitions over the alleged irregularities as lakhs of aspirants await a final verdict on the fate of the exam.

The performance of the candidates from the centres under the scanner -- such as Oasis School, Hazaribagh, Jharkhand, Hardayal Public School, Jhajjar, Haryana, Jay Jalaram International School in Godhra, Gujarat -- were comparatively much below par.

On July 11, the top court had adjourned till July 18 the hearing on the pleas, including those seeking cancellation of the exam, re-test and probe into alleged malpractices in the conduct of NEET-UG 2024, as the responses of the Centre and the NTA were yet to be received by some parties.

The bench had observed that it had received a status report from the Central Bureau of Investigation on the progress made in the probe.

In an additional affidavit filed in the apex court last week, the Centre said data analysis of the results of NEET-UG 2024 was conducted by IIT-Madras, which found there was no indication of "mass malpractice" or any localised set of candidates scoring abnormally high marks.

While hearing the pleas on July 8, the top court had observed that the sanctity of the NEET-UG 2024 has been "breached".

Saying that a re-test may be ordered if the entire process was affected, the bench had sought details from the NTA and the CBI, including the timing and manner of the alleged paper leak, besides the number of wrongdoers to understand the extent of irregularities claimed by the petitioners.

More than 23.33 lakh students had taken the test on May 5 at 4,750 centres in 571 cities, including in 14 cities overseas.

The Centre and the NTA, in their earlier affidavits filed in the apex court, had said that scrapping the exam would be "counterproductive" and "seriously jeopardise" lakhs of honest candidates in the absence of any proof of large-scale breach of confidentiality.

The National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test-Undergraduate (NEET-UG) is conducted by the NTA for admissions to MBBS, BDS, AYUSH and other related courses in government and private institutions across the country.

● In NEET 2024, a total of 23.33 lakh students appeared. Of them, 2321 students got 700 or more marks. These students were spread across 1,404 centres in the entire country and abroad. These 1404 centres were again spread across 276 cities and 25 States/UTs. Such a large spread shows that many candidates who were not from the traditional tuition hubs were also able to come in the toppers list in NEET 2024.

● It is true that many students appearing from traditional tuition hubs like Sikar, Kota and Kottayam were able to score 700 or more marks. However, the silver lining is that many students appearing from other cities were also able to come within this bracket. For example, 35 students appearing from Lucknow, 27 students appearing from Kolkata, 25 students appearing from Latur, 20 students appearing from Nagpur, 19 from Faridabad, 18 from Nanded, 17 from Indore, 16 each from Cuttack and Kanpur, 14 each from Kolhapur, Noida, Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar, 13 each from Agra and Aligarh, 10 each from Akola and Patiala, 8 from Davangere, 7 from Banaskantha, etc. were able to score 700 or more marks. It appears that aligning the syllabus of NEET with that of higher secondary has started to bear fruits.

Similar observations are available for other marks ranges as well. For example, in NEET 2024:

o Candidates scoring between 650 to 699 are spread across 509 Cities and 4044 Centres,

o Candidates scoring between 600 to 649 are spread across 540 Cities and 4484 Centres

o Candidates scoring between 550 to 599 are spread across 548 Cities and 4563 Centres

A rank-wise spread of NEET 2024 results show the following:

o Candidates between ranks 1 to 100 are spread across 56 Cities and 95 Centres

o Candidates between ranks 101 to 1000 are spread across 187 Cities and 706 Centres

o Candidates between ranks 1001 to 10000 are spread across 431 Cities and 2959 Centres

o Candidates between ranks 10001 to 50000 are spread across 523 Cities and 4283 Centres

o Candidates between ranks 50001 to 110000 are spread across 546 Cities and 4542 Centres

o Candidates between ranks 110000 to 150000 are spread across 539 Cities and 4470 Centres.

In NEET 2023, this spread was somewhat smaller than NEET 2024. In NEET 2023, we observed the following spread:

o Candidates scoring between 700 to 720 are spread across 116 Cities and 310 Centres

o Candidates scoring between 650 to 699 are spread across 381 Cities and 2431 Centres

o Candidates scoring between 600 to 649 are spread across 464 Cities and 3434 Centres