Case comment: Vanshika Yadav v. Union of India, others And Other Connected Matters

Citation: W.P. (C) No. 335/2024

Date of judgement: 23rd July, 2024

Court: Supreme court of India

Bench: Dr. DY Chandrachud, CJI, JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra JJ.

Facts

• In February 2024, the National Testing Agency (‘NTA’) issued an online application form for NEET, a qualifying examination for admission to undergraduate medical and dentistry programs, for the year 2024. Resultantly according to notification, NTA conducted the NEET (UG) examination on 5-05-2024. After the exam results were declared on 4 -06-2024.
• The turmoil took place when on 5-05-2024, a First Information Report was lodged alleging a leak in the NEET (UG) 2024 question papers implicating offences under Sections 407, 408 and 409 read with Section 120-B of the Penal Code, 1860 (‘IPC’).
• According to the petitioners, on 23-06-2024, the Economic Offences Unit of the Bihar Police issued a press release in regard to the paper leak. On the other hand, a communication was issued on 23-06-2024 by the Additional Director General of Police, Economic Offences Unit, stating that the Bihar Police has not issued an official press release or statement.

Key legal issues discussed

1. Whether NTA should re conduct the NEET or not?

No  

Court refused to cancel the 2024 NEET UG exam conducted on 5 May 2024 and ruled that NET is not wrong if the body is not reconducting the exam.

The Court reasoned that the paper leak was not “systematic” or widespread enough that it tampered with the “integrity” of the exam.

Court acknowledged that there was a paper leak in the centers of Hazaribagh (Jharkhand) and Patna (Bihar), but court also mentioned that sufficient material is absent on the record to lead to the conclusion that the results of the exam stand vitiated in its entirety or that there was a systemic breach in the sanctity of the exam.

2. Whether the particular question was ambiguous and two options were correct?

The question was:

Statement I: “Atoms are electrically neutral as they contain equal numbers of positive and negative charges.” 

Statement II: “Atoms of each element are stable and emit their characteristic spectrum.”

Based on the two statements above, choose the correct option from the following: 

(a) First is correct but second is incorrect; 

(b) First is incorrect but second is correct; 

(c) Both first and second statements are correct;

(d) Both statements are incorrect.

No

The IIT Delhi committee headed by IIT Director Rangan Banerjee submitted the report suggesting that option four is the correct answer. Further in accordance to the report CJI stated option four, which says the “Statement I is correct but Statement II is incorrect’ is correct”.

Committee opined clearly that there was only one option which is option four (4). So, the National Testing Agency (NTA) was correct in its answer key which was option four (4),
   

Analysis

• The Court went against the decision of the NTA to treat two options as the correct answers for one question. Accepting the expert report submitted by an expert team constituted by IIT-Delhi, headed by Rangan Banerjee, regarding this ambiguous question, the Court stated that both options are mutually exclusive and cannot stand together. Therefore, the Court directed that option 4 should be treated as the correct answer and the NTA was asked to re-tally the results accordingly.
• In relation to the fact that a leak of the NEET-UG 2024 paper took place at Hazaribagh and at Patna is not in dispute. There was transfer of the investigation, where CBI filed its status reports. The disclosures by the CBI noted that the investigation is still in process, but it has indicated that the present material showed that about 155 students drawn from exam centres at Hazaribagh and Patna appeared to be beneficiaries of the scam.
• Since the investigation by the CBI has not attained finality, the Court required the Union Govt to indicate if any abnormalities could be inferred from the results in 571 cities. The Union has produced a report of IIT Madras. The Court has independently scrutinized the data submitted by the Union.
• At the present stage, there is absence of material on the record sufficient to lead to the conclusion that the result of the exam stands vitiated or that there is a systemic breach in the sanctity of the exam.
• While hearing the argument of Advocate Tanvi Dubey appearing for several petitioners in the case, who pleaded for the Court not to declare the other option as incorrect, as that would mean that over four lakh students would lose five marks, thereby drastically impacting their ranks: Court did not entertained the plea and mentioned that “Answer should be correct on principles,” Justice Misra remarked, “You should not be relying solely on incorrect information in one textbook.”

Conclusion

If we talk of government stand over this issue then the Union Education Minister announced that the alleged irregularities in the recently held National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test (NEET) was “an institutional failure of the National Testing Agency”. In response to the incident, the Central Government announced a high-level committee, headed by former ISRO chairman Dr K Radhakrishnan, to look into the functioning and fair conduct examinations by the National Testing Agency (NTA).  The seven-member committee will submit its report in two months.

The Union government removed the NTA chief and put him on “compulsory wait” in the Department of Personnel and Training. The CBI has taken over the investigation of NEET UG following the discovery of evidence of a paper leak by investigators in Bihar.

NEET is not the first such paper leak incident as prior to this leak, investigations by various news sources revealed that there are approx. 70 cases of exam leaks, including recruitment and board exams, over the past seven years across 15 states and all the related incidents are subjected to judicial results. On many occasions, paper leaks weren’t reported on time and people took advantage of the same and landed jobs.