NEET SC hearing: Telegram, e-rickshaw, banks, petitioners list possibilities of paper leak

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court hearing on the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test undergraduate (NEET UG 2024) irregularities is ongoing. The petitioners have submitted reports and CBI findings on NEET paper leak and argued that the question paper was shared before the exam date. The NTA, however, claimed that there was “no paper leak”.

In connection with the case, the CBI has quizzed three students from AIIMS Patna today and arrested Pankaj Kumar alias Aditya, a 2017-batch civil engineer from the National Institute of Technology Jamshedpur, who allegedly stole the NEET-UG paper from the NTA trunk in Hazaribagh, the PTI reported.

A bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra is hearing the NEET paper leak case.

Explaining the paper leak in a centre, Senior Advocate Hooda said: “Entire country was given paper from SBI, but in Hardayal school, papers were given from Canara bank. The principal says that the instruction was to let the students do Canara bank paper. They gave grace marks to everyone in the school. Because of that extra mark, 6 people got 720/720.” Of this, two students from the same centre got 718.

“They have not come clean on that. First they said there was a delay in distribution. When they were caught, they said we are having a re-exam and don't go into the issue of grace marks. The question of who they gave grace marks to 15,063 odd people has not been examined by this court,” he argued.

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

Possibilities of NEET paper leak

Taking note, the CJI said: “There are two possibilities. One the paper gets leaked before the custody of banks. That means, it happened before May 3. Second, the leak happened when the papers left the banks and were bound for the centre. Alternative hypothesis is that leak happened in custody of banks is possible according to you, which means May 3. Between May 3 and May 5 is a long interval.”

Adding to this, Hooda said that the papers were under the custody of private companies, courier companies and e-rickshaws for a longer period. “The NEET question paper were sent to the cities between April 24 to 28 from the printing press. They have transported the papers in an e-rickshaw without any guard,” he said. Countering him, the SG said that those were not question papers but OMR sheets.

Answering CJI's question on when breach took place, the SG said: "It was in a particular centre, between 8.02 AM to 9.23 AM a person goes in, photographs the paper and comes out. There were 7 solvers and they divided 25 questions each. The questions were jumbled and so students were made to memorize.

“Students got only 2 hours to memorise the questions. That is why out of 18 students, only one student is possibly getting admission, but he will face debarment,” SG argued.

“Does somebody pay Rs 75,000 for 45 minutes? The hypothesis that the entire paper was solved in 45 minutes and given to students is too far-fetched," CJI commented.

The hearing is ongoing…