In the NEET UG-2024 paper leak case, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has detained two more people.
Pankaj Kumar, also known as Aditya, is a civil engineer from the National Institute of Technology Jamshedpur who graduated in 2017 and is one of the two accused of stealing the question paper from a sealed trunk in Hazaribagh. According to news agency PTI, Kumar, a Bokaro resident, was taken into custody in Patna.
Raju Singh has been named as the other offender; according to PTI, Singh assisted Kumar in stealing the document. Singh was taken into custody at Hazaribagh.
With the addition of these two, there have now been fourteen people detained in relation to cases of paper leaks, impersonation, and other irregularities in the medical entrance exam.
Six formal complaints have been filed by the inquiry agency in response to the purported irregularities in the exam. The Bihar FIR concerns paper leakage, while the remaining ones from Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Maharashtra are related to cheating and impersonating applicants.
NEET UG retest:
Supreme Court: The leak happened, but it would be unrealistic to believe that all 23 lakh pupils were implicated.
The Supreme Court scheduled a hearing for July 11 and stated that it would make a decision on the merits following the filing of responses to its inquiries from the government, the National Testing Agency (NTA), and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
NEET UG 2024: The Supreme Court stated on Monday that while it is obvious that there has been a leak in the NEET UG 2024 exam, ordering a retest will depend on whether the alleged breach was systemic and compromised the integrity of the entire process, as well as whether it was possible to separate the beneficiaries of the fraud from untainted students. The court noted that self-denial is only making matters worse.
“There is no question that the integrity of the exam has been violated… undermined. Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud stated, “Now the question is how widespread is the breach,” at the hearing of petitions from both those in favor of and those opposed to the cancellation of the May 5 NEET UG exams due to claims of paper leaks.
The bench of the CJI-led Supreme Court, which is made up of Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, stated that it could be too much to assume that all 23 lakh students—or a significant portion of them—were implicated in the scam until the government and its agencies provide it with relevant evidence.
The bench expressed distress if the exam had to be postponed, but the CJI stated, “For all we know, a large number of students may be honest.”
