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‘Sad they have not learnt lesson’: Supreme Court on NTA after 2026 NEET paper leak
A bench of Justices PS Narasimha and Alok Aradhe directed the NTA to file an affidavit by Thursday on compliance with the court's directions issued in 2024.
The Supreme Court on Monday said it was sad that NTA has not learned from the earlier NEET paper leak, and sought responses from the Centre, NTA, and the CBI on pleas seeking the replacement of the testing agency with a robust, autonomous body to conduct the medical entrance exam.
A bench of Justices PS Narasimha and Alok Aradhe directed that a copy of the petitions be served to Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, besides other parties, and asked the National Testing Agency (NTA), which is responsible for conducting the NEET exam, to file an affidavit by Thursday on compliance with the directions issued by the court in 2024.
"It's sad that they have not learnt their lessons. The matter travelled to this court earlier also. There was a committee, a monitoring committee, which made some recommendations, and they were accepted. We want NTA to file an affidavit on the steps taken for compliance of recommendations suggested by the committee," the bench said.
The top court, which issued notice on a plea filed by the Federation of All India Medical Association (FAIMA), through lawyer Tanvi Dubey, said it is tagging all the similar matters together.
It directed the Centre-appointed committee, led by former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chief K Radhakrishnan, to overhaul the functioning of the NTA and detail the steps taken to comply with its directions.
What has FAIMA sought?
The medical body has urged the top court to direct the restructuring or replacement of NTA with a robust, autonomous system to conduct NEET-UG, citing a "direct assault" on the fundamental rights of over 22.7 lakh students through recurring paper leaks.
It has also sought a direction to appoint a high-powered monitoring committee until a fresh body is formally constituted to oversee the re-examination. It further said the committee should comprise a retired Supreme Court judge as the chair, along with a cybersecurity expert and a forensic scientist, to ensure that no further leaks occur.
The undergraduate-level National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) held on May 3 by the NTA for admissions to medical education programmes was cancelled on May 12 amid allegations of paper leak, which are now being probed by the CBI.
