Amidst the hearing in the batch of pleas concerning the irregularities in the NEET examinations, Senior counsel Sanjay Hegde quoted famous poet Firaq Jalalpuri’s couplet, while summing up the case of the petitioners seeking re-test.
Hegde while appearing before a three judges bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud said, “This case can be summarized in just one poem – tu idhar udhar ki na baat kar, yeh bata ki qafila kyun luta, mujhe rahzanon se gila nahin teri rahbari ka sawal hai.”
The senior counsel’s comments came in as he sought the top court’s order for a re-test for those who have qualified the said examination.
He also pointed out to the bench that until the intervention of the Apex Court on the issue, the NTA maintained the stand that there was ‘no leak’.
“NTA kept on denying leak and then later said okay we can do re test for 1563 students.. it is only as late as June 22 that changes to personnel made and CBI took over the probe…there is also an organised gang which has a prior history of leaking such papers,” said Hegde.
“You can’t trust a competitive exam which has 61 toppers”, he argued further.
Meanwhile, the bench also comprising Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra directed the Director of the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi to constitute a three-member expert committee and give their opinion regarding the correct answer to an MCQ question of NEET-UG 2024, for which the National Testing Agency awarded marks for two options.
The Court passed the direction after hearing some petitioners who challenged the decision of the National Testing Authority (NTA) to treat two options as the correct answers to the question.
The Court has also requested the expert opinion to be placed before it by 12 noon tomorrow. The hearing too would continue tomorrow, with the Central government and the National Testing Agency (NTA) putting forth it’s submissions.
