Technical analysis by IIT Madras showed no sign of mass malpractice in NEET UG, Centre tells SC

NEW DELHI: The Union government has claimed before the Supreme Court that a technical analysis of NEET UG, 2024 data -- carried out by IIT Madras -- disclosed that neither was there any indication of mass malpractice, nor were there local set of candidates having been benefitted with abnormal scores.

In an affidavit, the Ministry of Education stated, after the Supreme Court's order of July 8, the IIT Madras was asked to carry out an exhaustive and elaborate technical evaluation of the data, on parameters of marks distribution, city wise and centre wise among candidates.

"The analysis shows that there is neither any indication of mass malpractice nor a localised set of candidates being benefitted leading to abnormal scores," it said.

The analysis, however, recorded overall increase in the marks obtained by students specifically in the range of 550 to 720. This increase is seen across the cities and the centres. This is attributed to 25 % reduction in syllabus. In addition, candidates obtaining such High marks are spread across multiple cities, indicating very less likelihood of malpractice, it said.

A request to the IIT Madras to carry out the exercise was made as the top court had on July 8 asked the government ascertain if it would be feasible to employ data analytics to identify suspects or suspicious cases NEET UG, 2024 in view of reports of paper leakage and other malpractices.

On the court's query if any decision is taken to identify any further beneficiary of paper leakage during the counselling, the Centre said for any candidate, if it is found that he or she has been beneficiary of any malpractice, their candidature would be cancelled at any stage during the counselling or afterwards.

The apex court is set to hear a batch of petitions seeking a direction for retest on Thursday.

The government also said the counselling process would start from third week of July and would be conducted in four rounds.

The government clarified that it was taking the solution oriented approach in the matter to ensure no candidate guilty of malpractice gets any benefit and 23 lakh students are not burdened with a fresh test "merely based upon unsupported apprehensions".