NEET Paper Leak: NTA tried to mislead SC, petitioners on ‘fundamentally flawed’ IIT Madras report

NEW DELHI: The National Testing Agency (NTA) continues to deny any illegalities in the NEET UG exam 2024, relying heavily on a report from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT Madras) IIT Madras, prepared by the director, who is one of the members of the governing body of NTA, the petitioners in a supplementary report said and alleged the IIT Madras detailed report is “fundamentally flawed due to its incomplete data collection and superficial analysis”.

“The NTA has tried to mislead the Supreme Court by filing an incomplete report of IIT Madras”, the petitioner alleged stating that the report “lacks comprehensive coverage”. The Supreme Court will hear over 40 pleas on NEET cancellations and petitions against the NTA today. A day ago, the apex court asked all petitions against the NTA filed in high courts be transferred to the Supreme Court to avoid multiplicity of litigations.

Several irregularities, including paper leak, awarding of grace marks, 61 students scoring perfect marks in NEET, raised questions against the medical entrance exam and the credibility of the NTA.

IIT Madras report on glance

Opposing the requests for re-NEET, the ministry of education urged the IIT Madras director, who is also one of the members of the governing body of NTA, to analyse the NEET results. The detailed report was then submitted before the apex court along with a fresh affidavit.

The committee considered parameters like marks distribution, city-wise and centre-wise rank distribution and candidates spread over marks-range to prepare the report. “The mark distribution graph shows a bell-shaped curve that is witnessed in any large-scale examination indicating no abnormality in the test,” the report said.

Although the education ministry requested to analyse the NEET results for the entire set of candidates, the report was carried for the top 1.4 lakh rank holders in NEET. Patna, where it was alleged that the question paper leaked, has only 2 people in the top 100, with an increase of only 1 candidate compared to 2023, the report noted. It also attributed the increase in NEET toppers to the 25% reduction in syllabus across the board.

Also read NEET UG Counselling 2024: MCC asks medical colleges to enter seat matrix by July 20

What did the IIT-M report lack?

Countering the claims made in the report, the petitioners highlighted the irregularities and said that the IIT-M analysis is inadequate to catch the real culprit.

• Out of top 100 students, 61 students got 720/720 but the report shows no abnormality.
• While in 2022, only 350 students scored above 700 marks; it has surged to 2,321 in 2024.
• There is a drastic inflation of 300 to 800% in the ranks between the 600 to 720 marks. The report clearly depicts that from 2023 to 2024 the rank in TOP 100 has exponentially increased by up to 400%, which was not the case in the last 5 years.
• Out of top 60,000 students from 571 cities, 6,999 students are from 3 cities namely Sikar, Kota and Patna, who are securing 8% medical seats but the report shows no abnormality.
• The report also depicts an inflation of 77,617 candidates in the marks range of 550 to 720 in comparison to the previous year 2023.

On the justification that the increase in toppers is due to syllabus cut, the petitioners pointed out that the syllabus reduction was considered for JEE Main exam as well, however, it did not see any such increase in score compared to previous year.

“Contrary to the NTA’s claim that question papers are transported in dedicated closed body vehicles with electronic locks and GPS tracking, reports have surfaced indicating that e-rickshaws were used to transport NEET UG 2024 question papers,” it said.

The graph shows the original and the breached data in one plot where the logarithmic scale makes it easier to identify the breached data points. (Source: Writ petition)

Demands of petitioners

Petitioners have requested the Supreme Court to direct NTA to publish the entire NEET UG result 2024 along with OMR sheets or the result of top 1.5 lakh students, on the website.

They also sought details of exam centres, board exam marks and NEET scores of around 24,000 students who had registered for NEET on April 9 and 10 when the registration window was reopened for two days.

Quoting media reports of arrests made by CBI in NEET-UG cases, petitioners have said that there were breaches in protocol and the examination process and through investigation is warranted.