Expressing concern over recurring irregularities in the NEET examination, the Supreme Court on Monday said it was “sad” that the National Testing Agency (NTA) had failed to learn from past lapses as it sought responses from the Centre, NTA and the CBI on pleas seeking a replacement of the testing body.
A bench of Justices PS Narasimha and Alok Aradhe directed the petitioners to serve copies of the pleas to Solicitor General Tushar Mehta and asked the NTA to file an affidavit by Thursday detailing compliance with directions issued by the apex court in 2024 following the earlier NEET paper leak controversy.
"It's sad that they have not learnt their lessons. The matter travelled to this court earlier also.
There was a committee, a monitoring committee which made some recommendations and they were accepted. We want NTA to file an affidavit on the steps taken for compliance of recommendations suggested by the committee," the bench said.
The court issued notice on a plea moved by the Federation of All India Medical Association (FAIMA) through advocate Tanvi Dubey and said all similar petitions would be tagged together for hearing.
It also directed the Centre-appointed panel headed by former ISRO chief K Radhakrishnan, tasked with overhauling the NTA’s functioning, to place on record the steps taken to implement the court’s earlier directions.
In its plea, FAIMA urged the top court to order a restructuring or replacement of the NTA with a more robust and autonomous mechanism for conducting NEET-UG, arguing that repeated paper leaks amounted to a “direct assault” on the fundamental rights of over 22.7 lakh aspirants.
The association also sought the appointment of a high-powered monitoring committee to oversee the re-examination process until a new body is constituted.
It proposed a panel headed by a retired Supreme Court judge and comprising a cybersecurity expert and a forensic scientist to prevent future leaks.
The undergraduate-level National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), conducted by the NTA on May 3 for admission to medical courses, was cancelled on May 12 following allegations of a paper leak. The matter is currently under investigation by the CBI.
(With inputs from PTI)