NEW DELHI: The
central government
on Saturday handed over the
investigation
of alleged
irregularities
into the 2024
NEET-UG exam
to Central Bureau of Investigation for a thorough probe.
"Certain cases of alleged irregularities, cheating, impersonation and malpractices have been reported in NEET-UG which was conducted on May 5", an official from the education ministry said.
"For transparency on the conduct of the examination process, it was decided after a review that the matter be handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (
CBI
) for comprehensive investigation," the official added.
This came after removed NTA director general Subodh Kumar Singh from his post and put him on "compulsory wait" in DoPT.
Pradeep Singh Kharola has been given additional charge of the post of Director General, National Testing Agency (NTA).
In a press release on Wednesday, the education ministry said, "In the matter pertaining to the NEET(UG) Examination-2024, the issue related to grace marks has already been fully addressed. As regards certain irregularities alleged in the conduct of the examination in Patna, a detailed report has been sought from the Economic Offences Unit, Bihar Police. Government will take further action, on receipt of this report."
This came after NTA decided to retract grace marks awarded to 1,563 students. It gave the aspirants the option to take a re-test.
The NEET (UG) 2024 exam, conducted by the NTA on May 5 at 4,750 centers, saw about 24 lakh candidates participating. Originally slated for June 14, the results were instead released on June 4, potentially due to the swift completion of answer sheet evaluations.
Several petitions were filed, including by Alakh Pandey -- CEO of the EdTech company 'Physics Wallah', challenging NTA's purported random allocation of grace marks to over 1,500 NEET-UG 2024 candidates
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