‘No NEET paper leak or corruption’: Dharmendra Pradhan says NTA will follow SC order on re-exam

Anu Parthiban and Shradha Chettri
NEW DELHI: Dharmendra Pradhan took charge as the Union education minister today in Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led 3.0 government. Besides talking about the objectives of the ministry, Pradhan told reporters that “there is no corruption or paper leak in NEET UG 2024”. The ministry said it will follow the orders of the Supreme Court in the NEET re-exam case.

The Supreme Court, which heard three petitions related to NEET controversy, said that the NEET results of 1,563 candidates who were awarded grace marks will stand cancelled. The NTA in its response to the top court said that it will conduct re-NEET 2023 for the affected candidates on June 23 and will declare the results of re-exam by June 30.

Responding to a question on the NEET paper leak, Dharmendra Pradhan said: “There is no corruption. There is no proof of paper leak. An expert committee was formed which recommended to conduct re-exam or award non-normalised marks for candidates who were compensated for loss of time during the exam.”

Pradhan said that the ministry will accept the court order and added "I want to assure the students and their parents that the Govt of India and NTA are committed to providing justice to them. 24 lakh students have successfully taken the NEET examination. There is no paper leak, no proof has been found yet. A court-recommended model was adopted for around 1560 students and a panel of academicians has been formed for the same."

Also read NEET results 2024 cancelled for 1,563 candidates, re-exam on June 23: Supreme Court

The minister also said they will conduct a sample study of the students of JNV, KV to see how the number of students qualifying the competitive exams has increased.

Highest number of 67 students obtained top rank in NEET this year, for the first time in the history, which has also raised suspicion. Among the toppers, six candidates who appeared from a centre in Haryana's Faridabad figured in the list. On this, the minister said: “In the last three years, it has been our effort that the JEE, NEET exam has been made like the Class 12 standards.”

Reiterating that there was no paper leak, the minister said that the NTA has been improving and has been conducting three largest entrance exams - Joint Entrance Examination Main (JEE Main) for engineering, National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET UG), and Common University Entrance Test (CUET) for UG, PG admissions. He also said that strict action will be taken against those who use unfair means to qualify an exam.

“Skilling will be made a part of education starting from Balvatika to research institutions to improve employability, futuristic education with an aim to make India a global destination for education,” he said today.