PaperDabba News Desk: July 19, 2024
The Central Bureau of Investigation has arrested four undergraduate students of AIIMS Patna in connection with the paper leak and irregularities in the NEET-UG 2024. The four accused are from the 2021 batch. They were arrested following hours of questioning on Thursday.
Details of the Arrest
The federal agency has sealed the rooms of the medical students, and their laptops and mobile phones have also been seized. Of the four arrested students, Chandan Singh, Rahul Anant, and Kumar Shanu are in MBBS third year, while Karanj Jain is a second-year student.
The arrest of the medical students comes a day after the CBI arrested two more people for allegedly stealing the question paper for the medical entrance test conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA). The accused, identified as Pankaj Kumar and Raju Singh, were arrested from Patna in Bihar and Hazaribagh in Jharkhand, respectively.
Further Developments
Pankaj Kumar is a part of the paper leak mafia, and he allegedly stole the NEET-UG question papers with Raju’s help. A special court in Patna on Wednesday sent Pankaj Kumar to 14-day CBI custody, while Raju was remanded to 10-day custody, officials said.
The CBI had arrested nine people in the NEET paper leak case. It also has the custody of 13 other accused, including Rocky alias Rakesh Ranjan, the kingpin in the case, from Bihar.
Supreme Court Involvement
The Supreme Court today heard a batch of petitions linked to the controversy-ridden medical entrance test. The court asked the NTA to publish the full result of the NEET-UG exam on its website but ensure that the identity of the candidates is not revealed.
On July 8, the Supreme Court observed that the sanctity of the NEET-UG 2024 was “breached”. Adding that a re-test may be ordered if the entire process was affected, the bench had sought details from the NTA and the CBI, including the timing and manner of the alleged paper leak. The court also sought information on the number of wrongdoers to understand the extent of the irregularities claimed by the petitioners.
Government and NTA’s Response
Meanwhile, the Centre and the NTA have both filed additional affidavits in the Supreme Court. The Centre’s affidavit said data analytics of the NEET-UG 2024 results conducted by IIT-Madras revealed there was neither an indication of “mass malpractice” nor a localised set of candidates benefiting from the same and scoring unusually high marks.
The affidavit added that the counselling for undergraduate seats for 2024-25 will be conducted in four rounds starting in the third week of July. The NTA’s affidavit, filed on similar lines, said that it carried out an analysis of the distribution of marks at the national, state, and city levels. The exam body said that the higher marks obtained by some NEET candidates were “not a systematic failure”. It added that the reduction of almost 25 per cent of the syllabus helped the aspirants score better in the medical entrance test.
Ongoing Legal Proceedings
A bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra would hear over 40 petitions in connection with the NEET-UG row today.
