NEET-UG Hearing: SC Directs NTA To Publish Center

When questioned about how many students changed their centres, the NTA stated that, in the name of corrections, students have changed centres, and 15,000 students utilized the window for corrections. The NTA informed the Supreme Court that students can change only the city, and no candidate can choose the centre. The centre is allotted by the system. The centre's allotment is done only two days before the exam, so nobody knows which centre will be allotted.

It was noted in the order that some of the parties in the case haven't received the affidavits filed by the Centre and NTA and they need to prepare their responses before arguments.
On July 11, the Central government filed an affidavit in the case denying any mass malpractice in the NEET-UG 2024 exam.

The Supreme Court has sought detailed information from the National Testing Agency (NTA) regarding the number of candidates who changed their examination cities. This inquiry follows concerns about potential irregularities in the centre allotment process.

In the affidavit, the Centre said the data analytics done by the Indian Institute of Technology Madras shows that there is neither any indication of mass malpractice nor a localised set of candidates being benefitted leading to abnormal scores. It also said that counselling will be conducted in four rounds starting from the third week of July. "For any candidate, if it is found that he/she has been the beneficiary of any malpractice, the candidature of such person would be cancelled at any stage during the counselling process or even afterwards," the affidavit stated.

The NTA in its affidavit had also said that the video showing a photo of the NEET-UG exam paper leaked on Telegram on May 4 was fake. "The timestamp was manipulated to create a false impression of an early leak," it had added.

It said that NTA has carried out an analysis of distribution of marks of candidates in NEET-UG 2024 at the National, State and City levels and also Centre level. "This analysis indicates that the distribution of marks is quite normal and there seems to be no extraneous factor, which would influence the distribution of marks," it had submitted.

Aspirants had approached the top court and raised the issue of leakage of question paper, awarding compensatory marks and anomaly in question of NEET-UG.

NEET-UG examination, conducted by NTA, is the pathway for admissions into MBBS, BDS and AYUSH and other related courses in government and private institutions across the country. The NEET-UG, 2024 was held across 4,750 centres on May 5 and around 24 lakh candidates appeared for the exam.