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SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
DR DHANANJAYA Y. CHANDRACHUD, CJI., J.B. PARDIWALA, MANOJ MISRA, JJ.
Vanshika Yadav – Appellant
Versus
Union of India & Ors – Respondents
Writ Petition (Civil) No 335 of 2024 With W.P.(C) No.362/2024 With W.P.(C) No.369/2024 With W.P.(C) No.368/2024 With W.P.(C) No.431/2024 With W.P.(C) No.379/2024 With W.P.(C) No.377/2024 With W.P.(C) No.376/2024 With W.P.(C) No.375/2024 With W.P.(C) No.425/2024 With W.P.(C) No.401/2024 With W.P.(C) No.415/2024 With W.P.(C) No.407/2024 With W.P.(C) No.412/2024 With W.P.(C) No.383/2024 With W.P.(C) No.419/2024 With W.P.(C) No.406/2024 With W.P.(C) No.403/2024 With W.P.(C) No.414/2024 With W.P.(C) No.423/2024 With W.P.(C) No.427/2024 With W.P.(C) No.441/2024 With W.P.(C) No.420/2024 With W.P.(C) No.430/2024 With W.P.(C) No.446/2024 With W.P.(C) No.410/2024 With T.P.(C) No.1602/2024 With W.P.(C) No.382/2024 With W.P.(C) No.394/2024 With W.P.(C) No.384/2024 With W.P.(C) No.389/2024 With W.P.(C) No.417/2024 With W.P.(C) No.393/2024 With W.P.(C) No.435/2024 With W.P.(C) No.449/2024 And With W.P.(C) No.392/2024
Decided on : 02-08-2024
(A) Education – National Eligibility cum Entrance Test [“NEET”] – Leak of question paper – If prima facie a question is considered ambiguous, such a question should be deleted – There is no evidence to indicate a systemic leak as on date – Cancellation of an examination, either for the purposes of gaining admission into professional and other courses or for the purpose of recruitment to a government post, is justified only in cases where sanctity of exam is found to be compromised at a systemic level – Courts may direct cancellation of an examination or approve such cancellation by competent authority only if it is not possible to separate tainted candidates from untainted ones – Number or proportion of students who can be believed to have indulged in malpractice is a relevant factor in deciding such cases – Purpose of testing whether integrity of exam has been compromised at a systemic level is to ensure that cancellation of exam which has already taken place and conduct of a fresh examination is a proportionate response – In arriving at a conclusion as to whether an examination suffers from widespread issues, courts must ensure that allegations of malpractice are substantiated and that material on record, including investigative reports, point to that conclusion – There must be at least some evidence to allow Court to reach that conclusion – This standard need not be unduly strict – A holistic view must be taken. (Paras 48, 60, 61, 63, 66 and 67)
(B) Education – National Eligibility cum Entrance Test [“NEET”] – Leak of question paper – There are no abnormalities in results for 2024 when compared with results for past two years – Report of Director of IIT, Madras also supports conclusion of this Court – Analysis of results does not lend support to case of petitioners who seek cancellation of exam – Leak of paper does not appear to be widespread or systemic – It appears to be restricted to isolated incidents in some cities, which have been identified by police or are in the process of being identified by CBI – Material on record does not, at present, substantiate allegation that there has been widespread malpractice which compromised integrity of exam – Students who were beneficiaries of leak at Hazaribagh and Patna are capable of being identified – NTA has sufficient resources at its disposal – It has adequate funding, time, and opportunities to organise exams such as NEET without lapses of the kind that occurred this year – Security protocols must be tightened to decrease possibility of malpractice and fraud and to lessen access by private persons to question papers – Formation of a committee is essential to thoroughly investigate and address structural issues – Elaborate directions issued. (Paras 77, 84, 95, 96, 104, 105 and 106)
(C) Education – National Eligibility cum Entrance Test [“NEET”] – Counselling process or process by which admission is gained into different medical colleges depends on rank of candidate – Qualifying mark is arrived at after declaration of results each year and corresponds to 50th percentile – Qualifying marks are necessary but not sufficient for admission. (Para 71)
Facts of the case:
Present batch of matters concerns validity of National Eligibility cum Entrance Test [“NEET”] for undergraduate students. Investigation into the leak of the paper and the adoption of other unfair means by candidates was transferred from Bihar State police to Economic Offences Unit in Bihar. Investigation was later transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation.
Findings of Court:
Nothing in this judgment shall be construed as a finding of fact in relation to criminal proceedings arising from leak of question paper or from other forms of malpractice. However, ruling of Court will not be relied on to refrain from prosecuting individuals found to have indulged in malpractice in any centres, irrespective of whether such fraud has already been identified or is identified in future. Stringent action in accordance with law shall be taken against every candidate who is detected or who may hereafter be detected to have been beneficiary of any malpractice.
Result : Transfer petitions allowed.
JUDGMENT :
Dr Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, CJI
| Table of Contents |
| A. Background |
| B. Previous orders of the Court |
| C. Submissions |
| D. Issues |
| E. Analysis |
| i. Facts which have emerged during the course of the hearing |
| a. Chain of custody of question papers as detailed by NTA |
| b. Issues in Hazaribagh, Sawai Madhopur, Patna and other places |
| ii. The marks awarded for one of the questions must be revised because only one of the options is the correct answer. |
| iii. There is no conflict of interest with the Director of IIT, Madras analysing |
| the data in this case |
| iv. There is no evidence to indicate a systemic leak as on date |
| a. Position of law |
| b. The present case |
| F. The conduct of NTA: Cause for concern |
| G. Issues in the conduct of the examination and the remit of the committee constituted by the Union Government |
| H. Parting remarks |
1. This batch of matters concerns the validity of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test1[“NEET”] for undergraduate students. The petitions were disposed of in terms of the directions issued by this Court by its judgment dated 23 July 2024. Detailed reasons were to follow the order. They are recorded in this judgment.
A. Background
2. The National Testing Agency2[“NTA”] conducts the NEET every year for admission into medical colleges. A total of 1,08,000 seats are available for the MBSS course. Of the seats available for the MBBS course, approximately 56,000 seats are in government hospitals and about 52,000 are in private colleges. Admissions to undergraduate courses in Dentistry, Ayurveda, Unani, and Siddha also utilise the results of the NEET for admission.
3. The NEET is divided into four segments comprising Physics, Chemistry, Botany, and Zoology. Each section contains forty-five questions. The test comprises a total of one hundred and eighty questions. Four marks are awarded for every question which is attempted correctly and one mark is subtracted for each incorrect answer. Questions which are not attempted attract neither positive nor negative marks. Hence, the test carries a maximum of 720 marks in total. The total duration of the test was three hours and twenty minutes.
4. This year, NTA opened the online portal for registration for the NEET on 9 February 2024. NEET was conducted on 5 May 2024 for over 23 lakh candidates at 4750 centres in 571 cities. The exam was also conducted in fourteen cities overseas. Soon after the exam, it became known that the question paper was leaked or illegally circulated amongst some students prior to the conduct of the exam at Hazaribagh in Jharkhand and in Patna. First Information Reports3[“FIR”] were registered in multiple states including Bihar, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Jharkhand. The Bihar Police appears to have issued a press release4[Dated 10 May 2024] stating that its Economic Offences Unit had arrested thirteen persons in Patna in connection with the leak. The Additional Director General of Police, Economic Offences Unit appears to have issued a communication stating that the Economic Offences Unit has not released an official press statement.
5. When the results were declared by NTA on 4 June 2024, it emerged that compensatory or grace marks were awarded to 1563 candidates at certain centres who did not have the opportunity to utilize the entire duration of the exam (i.e., 3 hours 20 minutes). The compensatory marks were awarded upon the recommendation of the Grievance Redressal Committee constituted by NTA. Following the grant of grace marks, these candidates scored in the range of -20 to 720 marks.
6. The investigation into the leak of the paper and the adoption of other unfair means by candidates was transferred from the Bihar State police to the Economic Offences Unit in Bihar. The investigation was later transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation. 5[“CBI”]
7. Various writ petitions were instituted inter alia for cancellation of the exam and c
(1) Cancellation of an examination, either for the purposes of gaining admission into professional and other courses or for the purpose of recruitment to a government post, is justified only in cases....
National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (UG) 2024 – Leakage of question paper – No student who is revealed to have engaged in acts of fraud or to have been beneficiary of malpractice would be entitled....
An examination can only be cancelled if there are systemic irregularities; isolated incidents do not justify re-examination if tainted candidates can be segregated from untainted ones.
Minor technical irregularities in recruitment exams, promptly rectified without systemic fraud or inability to segregate tainted/untainted candidates, do not vitiate entire selection process.
The court held that procedural discrepancies and allegations, without substantial evidence of bias or systemic failure, do not merit interference with the integrity of the examination process.
Allegations of examination tampering must be substantiated with credible evidence to establish a legal cause of action for relief.
The unsubstantiated nature of beliefs and lack of evidence are insufficient to establish a valid cause of action in seeking reliefs through a writ petition.
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