Centre, Exam Body Trying Daily To Stop NEET Retest, Says Aspirants' Lawyer

The Centre and the National Testing Agency (NTA) are coming up with a new strategy daily to prevent NEET-UG retest, the lawyer representing a bunch of medical education aspirants told the media today.

Dheeraj Singh represents 20-odd petitioners who had taken the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) which medical education aspirants must clear for admission to colleges across the country.

The Supreme Court is hearing the massive issue surrounding the all-India exam amid allegations of paper leak and unfair marking. As many as 24 lakh students took the exam on May 5. The court will hear the matter again next Thursday.

Mr Singh told NDTV that the NTA has now taken a stand contrary to its earlier position and stressed that there is "no bungling". "Some new facts have come to the fore. First, they said 67 toppers, this reduced to 61 after re-examination. And now, the new stand is there are only 17 toppers and the 44 others got 720/720 because they got compensatory marks for a wrong question," he said.

"Every day, the government and NTA are bringing new grounds and trying new ways to stop Re-NEET at any cost," Mr Singh said.

The lawyer was referring to the NTA's latest affidavit filed in the Supreme Court, in which the testing agency has said it has found no proof of a paper leak. The affidavit has come at a time when CBI is investigating the alleged paper leak case and has made arrests.

The lawyer also responded to the NTA's contention that a video on Telegram that claims to show the leaked question paper is fake.

"They have said it's edited. Our stand is that some information reached the students and they put it before the court. NTA saying that it is edited is not enough. They have not specified what their conclusion is based on. Did they check it sitting in their office or an expert decided it," Mr Singh said.

The court, he said, had also asked when the alleged leak happened and what is its scope. "NTA is silent on this. The most interesting stand is that NTA has denied the Patna leak. There is a proper FIR, the CBI is probing it. So as per NTA, no leak happened in Patna."

NTA, Mr Singh said, is now claiming that no leak happened. "In that case, those (arrested) must be released," he said.

The testing agency, he said, had claimed that there is manual interference in their process and the system is computerised. "Then, how did six students in the same centre in Jhajjar with sequential role numbers top the exam," Mr Singh asked.

NTA is taking a stand that this is not a leak case, and that isolated paper solver gangs are at play, he said. "Paper solver gangs must have got the questions in advance. That's why they could solve them," the lawyer said.