The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to order a reexamination for the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test undergraduate exam for the year 2024 (NEET UG 2024), saying the evidence before it was not sufficient to show a widespread leak of question paper and other malpractices as alleged by the petitioners who moved the court.

A bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra heard submissions from a battery of lawyers, including Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre and the National Testing Agency (NTA), and senior advocates Narender Hooda, Sanjay Hegde and Mathews Nedumapra for around four days.

“At the present stage there is absence of material on record to lead to a conclusion that result of the exam is vitiated or that there is a systemic breach of the sanctity of the exam,” the court said while rejecting the plea for retest.

The interim verdict, to be followed by a detailed and reasoned order, came as a shot in the arm for the embattled NDA Government and the National Testing Agency (NTA), which were facing strong criticism and protests, on streets and in Parliament, over alleged large-scale malpractices like question paper leak, fraud and impersonation in the prestigious test held on May 5.

Instead of reserving the verdict, the bench re-assembled around 4:50 pm and started dictating the order.

It said “In a matter like this final conclusions of the court be recorded at the present stage since there is an urgent need to provide certainty and finality to the dispute which has occurred and affects the career of over 2 million students.”

While acknowledging that there was a paper leak in the centres in Hazaribagh(Jharkhand) and Patna(Bihar), the Court said that sufficient material is absent on the record to lead to the conclusion that the results of the exam stand vitiated in its entirety or that there was a systemic breach in the sanctity of the exam.

“The data produced on record is not indicative of a systemic leak of the question paper which would lead to the destruction of the sanctity of the exam, the Court stated. “We are of the view that ordering Re-neet or cancellation of the entire NEET-UG 2024 Exam is not justified on the application of the settled tests propounded by decisions of this court on the basis of the material on record,” the Court stated.

If a CBI probe reveals an increased number of beneficiaries, suitable action can be taken against such students.

“No student who is revealed to have been in this fraud or is a beneficiary would be entitled to claim any vested right in continuation of admission,” it said.

The Court also disapproved of the decision of the NTA to treat two options as the correct answers for one question.

Accepting the expert report submitted by an expert team constituted by IIT-Delhi regarding this ambiguous question, the Court stated that both options are mutually exclusive and cannot stand together. A panel of three experts of IIT Delhi has told the Supreme Court that there was was only one right answer and not two to a controversial physics question that was asked in the NEET-UG 2024 examination. At the outset, the CJI referred to the contents of the report, and said, “We have received the IIT Delhi report. The IIT Director Rangan Banerjee...Constituted a committee from the department of physics and they say a team of three experts examined the question. They say that the option four is the correct answer.”

The CJI further said the option four, which says the “Statement I is correct but Statement II is incorrect’ is correct”.   “The committee has opined clearly that there was only one option which is option four (4). So the National Testing Agency (NTA) was correct in its answer key which was option four (4),” the bench said.  The hearing is underway and presently, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre and the NTA, is arguing.  The top court is hearing a clutch of pleas, including those that are seeking a re-test of the controversy-ridden NEET-UG on grounds of question paper leak and other malpractices.

The NEET-UG 2024 was taken by 23.33 lakh students at 4,750 centres in 571 cities, including in 14 overseas, on May 5.