NEET Row: 3 AIIMS Patna Doctors Detained Before Supreme Court Hearing Today
Ahead of the NEET-UG hearing in the Supreme Court today, the Central Bureau of Investigation has detained three doctors from AIIMS Patna in connection with the paper leak and irregularities in the entrance examination.
The doctors are from the 2021 batch, and they have been taken into custody for questioning. The federal agency has sealed the rooms of the doctors, and their laptops and mobile phones have also been seized.
The detention of the doctors comes a day after the CBI arrested two more people for allegedly stealing the question paper for the medical entrance test conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA). The accused, identified as Pankaj Kumar and Raju Singh, were arrested from Patna in Bihar and Hazaribagh in Jharkhand, respectively.
Pankaj Kumar is a part of the paper leak mafia, and he allegedly stole the NEET-UG question papers with Raju’s help. A special court in Patna on Wednesday sent Pankaj Kumar to 14-day CBI custody, while Raju was remanded to 10-day custody, officials said.
The CBI had arrested nine people in the NEET paper leak case. It also has the custody of 13 other accused, including Rocky alias Rakesh Ranjan, the kingpin in the case, from Bihar.
The Supreme Court will hear today a batch of petitions linked to the controversy-ridden medical entrance test. At the last hearing on July 11, the top court had adjourned till today the hearing of the pleas, including those seeking cancellation of the examination, re-test and probe into alleged malpractices in the conduct of NEET-UG 2024. This was done since the responses of the Centre and the NTA were yet to be received by some parties.
On July 8, the Supreme Court observed that the sanctity of the NEET-UG 2024 was “breached”. Adding that a re-test may be ordered if the entire process was affected, the bench had sought details from the NTA and the CBI, including the timing and manner of the alleged paper leak. The court also sought information on the number of wrongdoers to understand the extent of the irregularities claimed by the petitioners.
Meanwhile, the Centre and the NTA have both filed additional affidavits in the Supreme Court.
The Centre’s affidavit said data analytics of the NEET-UG 2024 results conducted by IIT-Madras revealed there was neither an indication of “mass malpractice” nor a localised set of candidates benefiting from the same and scoring unusually high marks.
The affidavit added that the counselling for undergraduate seats for 2024-25 will be conducted in four rounds starting July third week.
The NTA’s affidavit, filed on similar lines, said that it carried out an analysis of the distribution of marks at the national, state and city level.
The exam body said that the higher marks obtained by some NEET candidates were “not a systematic failure”. It added that the reduction of almost 25 per cent of the syllabus helped the aspirants score better in the medical entrance test.
A bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra would hear over 40 petitions in connection with the NEET-UG row today.