New Delhi:

Doubling down on its ‘no leak’ stand in the massive row surrounding the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), the National Testing Agency has told the Supreme Court that no question paper was found to be missing and no locks were broken in Patna.

This is significant because allegations of a paper leak in the all-India entrance exam for medical education aspirants first emerged from the Bihar capital. The CBI, which is investigating alleged irregularities in the exam, has arrested eight people in the Bihar case.

In its affidavit filed in Supreme Court, the NTA has said that reports of the City coordinator, Centre Superintendent(s) and observers concerned were examined.

“No question paper was found missing in any Trunk. Each question paper has a unique serial number and was assigned to a particular candidate. No locks were found broken. The reports from NTA Observers did not report anything adverse. The CCTV coverage in the Command Centre were constantly monitored. No untoward incident or any pointer to paper leakage was observed,” it said.

The NTA’s response comes after the Supreme Court’s remark that it is clear that a leak has taken place. “One thing is clear that leak of question paper has taken place,” a bench of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justice J B Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra said Monday. “If the sanctity of the exam is lost, then a re-test has to be ordered. If we are unable to identify those who are guilty, then a re-test has to be ordered,” the bench said. The court has said that the extent of the leak and the beneficiaries have to be identified before the court may order a re-test that will potentially affect lakhs of students.

The testing agency has also responded to the alleged paper leak in Rajasthan’s Sawai Madhopur.

“NTA came to know from social media on the day of exam itself around 4:30 PM that an incident has occurred at one Exam Centre in Sawai Madhopur, Rajasthan, where a wrong medium of Question Paper was distributed, and some candidates protested and left the centre without giving the exam along with the question paper.”

“Thereafter, a picture of the question paper was circulated on the social media alleging be a paper leak. In fact, there could not be leak caused by such an incident and the same was clarified immediately,” the NTA has said.

“It is further clarified that the access to the centres was regulated and no Internet and mobile connectivity was possible during the actual conduct of the examination due to installation of jammers and control over usage of electronic devices thereby eliminating all scope of any adverse impact of such an incident,” it said, adding that the retest at the centre was conducted smoothly the same day.

The NTA’s emphasis that no paper leaked comes after the Centre told the Supreme Court yesterday there was neither any indication of “mass malpractice” nor a localised set of candidates being benefited.

It said the data analytics of results of NEET-UG 2024 was conducted by IIT Madras and as per the findings given by the experts, the marks distribution follows the bell-shaped curve that is witnessed in any large-scale examination indicating no abnormality.

New Delhi:

The CBI on Friday arrested the principal and vice principal of a school in Jharkhand’s Hazaribagh in connection with the NEET-UG paper leak case, officials said.

Ehsanul Haque, the principal of Oasis School, was made the city coordinator of Hazaribagh for the medical entrance exam conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) on May 5, they said.

Vice Principal Imtiaz Alam was designated as the NTA’s observer and the centre coordinator at the Oasis School, officials said, adding the CBI is also questioning five more people from the district in connection with the paper leak case.

The federal probe agency arrested Haque and Alam after detailed questioning, they said.

Both the accused came under scanner during a probe by the Bihar Police’s Economic Offences Unit (EOU) which was investigating the case earlier. The team had found burnt question papers of NEET-UG during a raid at a hideout of the solver gang, officials said.

In a statement, the EOU had claimed the “leaked” NEET-UG question paper was allegedly obtained from the Oasis School in Hazaribagh by the notorious Sanjeev Kumar alias Lutan Mukhiya gang.

It had said the investigators had matched a partially burnt question paper found from the Patna safe house with the reference question paper provided by the NTA, confirming the leak’s origin.

However, it could not clearly establish who was behind the alleged paper leak, officials said.

According to them, the probe had also shown that laid down guidelines for opening the question paper boxes were not properly followed by the authorities in Hazaribagh.

In media interviews, Haque has maintained that the box carrying the question papers could not be opened because its digital lock, which was supposed to unlock automatically, had malfunctioned.

Following this, he contacted the NTA, which asked him to use a cutter to open the box, Haque has claimed.

The boxes carrying question papers have two locks — a manual one that must be opened with a key and cutter and a digital lock that opens with a beep sound 45 minutes before the examination.

The CBI has registered six FIRs in the NEET-UG paper leak case which included its own FIR on a reference from the Union Education Ministry and five from the states where it took over investigation. The probe agency has taken over one case each in Bihar and Gujarat and three cases in Rajasthan.

On Thursday, CBI made its first arrests in the NEET-UG paper leak case, taking two people in custody in Patna while three candidates in Gujarat who had allegedly solicited help to clear the exam recorded their statements with the probe agency.

NEET-UG is conducted by NTA for admissions to MBBS, BDS, AYUSH and other related courses in government and private institutions across the country. This year’s exam was conducted on May 5 at 4,750 centres in 571 cities, including 14 abroad. Over 23 lakh candidates appeared for the test.

The first CBI FIR was registered on Sunday, a day after the ministry announced it would hand over the probe into the alleged irregularities in the conduct of the exam to the central agency.

The demand for a CBI probe was raised by a section of protesting students.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)