SC Says NTA ‘Has Not Learnt Lessons’ In NEET Paper Leak Case

NEW DELHI, May 25: The Supreme Court on Monday observed that the National Testing Agency (NTA) had “not learnt its lessons” from the earlier NEET paper leak controversy as it sought responses from the Centre, NTA and the CBI on pleas seeking replacement of the testing body with an autonomous mechanism for conducting the medical entrance examination.

A bench of Justices P S Narasimha and Alok Aradhe directed the NTA to file an affidavit by Thursday detailing compliance with directions issued by the apex court in 2024 following the previous 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,” the bench observed.

The court said it wanted the NTA to place on record the steps taken to implement recommendations made by the monitoring committee.

The apex court issued notice on a petition filed by the Federation of All India Medical Association (FAIMA) and tagged similar pleas together for hearing.

The bench also directed the Centre-appointed committee headed by former ISRO chief K Radhakrishnan, constituted to overhaul the functioning of the NTA, to provide details of compliance with the court’s directions.

FAIMA, through its plea, sought restructuring or replacement of the NTA with a “robust and autonomous” body to conduct NEET-UG, alleging that repeated paper leaks amounted to a direct assault on the rights of over 22.7 lakh students.

The petition also sought constitution of a high-powered monitoring committee headed by a retired Supreme Court judge, along with cybersecurity and forensic experts, to supervise the proposed re-examination process and prevent future leaks.

The NEET-UG examination held on May 3 for admissions to undergraduate medical courses was cancelled on May 12 following allegations of paper leak, which are currently being investigated by the CBI. (Agencies)