The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has detained four undergraduate students from AIIMS Patna in connection with the NEET-UG 2024 paper leak scandal, ahead of a crucial Supreme Court hearing today. These students, part of the 2021 batch, are under scrutiny for their alleged involvement in the leak and irregularities surrounding the medical entrance exam. The CBI has sealed the students’ rooms and confiscated their laptops and mobile phones. Of the four detainees, three are third-year students while one is in the second year. They hail from Bihar and Jharkhand, with three students from Bihar and one from Dhanbad, Jharkhand.
The detention follows the arrest of two individuals, Pankaj Kumar and Raju Singh, accused of stealing the NEET-UG question papers. Pankaj Kumar, allegedly a member of the paper leak mafia, and Raju Singh were apprehended from Patna, Bihar, and Hazaribagh, Jharkhand, respectively. A special court in Patna has remanded Pankaj Kumar to 14 days of CBI custody, while Raju Singh has been placed in 10-day custody. In the broader investigation, the CBI has arrested nine individuals and has custody of 13 others, including the alleged kingpin, Rocky alias Rakesh Ranjan, from Bihar. The Supreme Court is set to hear over 40 petitions related to the NEET-UG controversy today. The last hearing on July 11 saw the top court adjourn proceedings until today, pending responses from the Centre and the National Testing Agency (NTA).
On July 8, the Supreme Court noted that the integrity of the NEET-UG 2024 exam was compromised. The bench suggested that a re-test might be ordered if the entire process was found to be affected, and sought detailed information from the NTA and CBI about the timing and manner of the paper leak, as well as the number of individuals involved to gauge the extent of the irregularities. In response, both the Centre and the NTA have filed additional affidavits in the Supreme Court. The Centre’s affidavit, based on data analytics conducted by IIT-Madras, concluded that there was no evidence of “mass malpractice” or a localized group of candidates benefiting from unusually high scores. The affidavit also indicated that the counselling for undergraduate seats for the 2024-25 academic year would commence in the third week of July and would be conducted in four rounds.
The NTA’s affidavit mirrored the Centre’s findings, stating that their analysis of mark distribution at national, state, and city levels revealed no systematic failure. The reduction of nearly 25% of the syllabus for the exam reportedly enabled candidates to achieve higher scores. Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, along with Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, will preside over the hearing of the petitions today. The outcomes of this session will be pivotal in determining the future course of action regarding the NEET-UG 2024 examination and its associated controversies.