Signing you in

The court, however, said that the problem will not end unless accountability is fixed.

“The real problem won’t stop till actual accountability is fixed. Not in terms of so and so will be liable, it will be effective when we know which individual shoulders the responsibility. Unless you identify the specific duty bearers, it will be difficult,” said Justice P S Narasimha presiding over a two-judge bench.

He said in a situation of the given nature, unless the responsibility is identified, it will only remain a case of the committee holding meeting after meetings.

The bench asked the Centre to file an affidavit indicating how and in which manner the process of conduct and conclusion of the examination, year after year, will be done. It said the affidavit be filed within six weeks and posted the matter for hearing in the second week of July.

The bench also comprising Justice Alok Aradhe said the NTA must learn from bodies like the UPSC on conducting competitive exams.

“We have…created and established world-class institutions. UPSC, for example, with the amount of conduct of the preliminary exams and other things, (has) never been (in) a situation like this. We need to learn…,” Justice Narasimha said.

The judge said “the problem with most of our institutions is ad hocism. So much so you will have the best of the officers working and everybody will depend on that. It is a phenomenon everywhere in our country…”

Stating that “we will keep monitoring this for some time”, Justice Narasimha said, there is something called “institutional memory. It’s not the individual who has the capability; it’s the institution which should have the capability. That’s what you need to prepare, irrespective of people coming, irrespective of people going… There must be something to evolve over the existing practices.”

The bench also interacted with former ISRO chairman K Radhakarishnan, who is the head of the Monitoring Committee set up by the SC in 2024 to recommend measures to strengthen the NEET exams.

“You were also part of the expert committee. A highly empowered committee… How much monitoring has happened about the implementation? Have you been holding regular meetings,” Justice Narasimha asked.

Radhakrishnan answered in the affirmative following which the judge asked, “Then how did this failure occur…?”

Justice Narasimha said: “Despite your monitoring on the basis of the high-powered committee’s recommendation, if this incident (NEET paper leak) has happened, then there is something wrong with the original recommendation (or) there would not have been effective monitoring. How has it happened?”

Radhakrishnan said the high-level committee of experts had given 60 recommendations for 2025 and 2026 exams, and 35 for the long-term.

He said most of the recommendations had been implemented while a few were in the process of being implemented.

He said in 2025, the NEET-UG was conducted almost satisfactorily but for power failures at some centres.

Radhakrishnan said it had also recommended steps “to strengthen NTA which was really outstretched (itself) to conduct all the tests assigned to it. This has happened recently.”

The court asked: “What was that which was not in the contemplation of the HPC that led to this?”

Radhakrishnan said the “Committee contemplated all possible problems. The question was really the question paper preparation”.

“There are certain protocols, certain practices to be followed… Many are implemented. A few are yet to be done,” he said while assuring the court that “at the moment, these are being taken care of” and “for the re-Neet that is going to be held on June 21, these are going to be taken care of”. “Our target is to see the reforms are implemented,” he said.

Justice Narasimha said what has happened is “traumatic” for lakhs of students who spent years preparing for NEET. “We should not disappoint our youngsters, it’s very traumatising so much investment of emotions and time…It’s the most sensitive thing.”

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, said, “We are dealing with youth and the government is seriously concerned about the concerns of the youth.”

He said Radhakrishnan “did not very advisedly say certain things because the investigation is on”. Also, some new mechanisms have been put in place for the June 21 exams. “Not divulging but it is monitored at the highest possible executive level.” Mehta said, adding, “the Hon’ble Prime Minister is personally supervising it”.

Justice Narasimha pointed to the need to institutionalise the mechanism for receiving suggestions and making recommendations.

Radhakrishnan said, “NTA has institutional memory and what our committee found when we were reviewing is that it is not having sufficient domain experts available, which is being added, and what we have introduced is to get the domain experts on IIT system, the UGC system…to get into this place. And we have also got experts who have been conducting the tests of the IIT-JEE for example. So they have been brought into the systemic level.”

He added that “in 2024, we had a problem in the test centres at different places; in the transportation of the question papers from Delhi to the centres. This has been addressed and we have completely cleaned up this area which we saw in the last test and this test.”

Mehta said there are also certain new things which were found by the committee. “The Committee has also looked into it. They have identified the areas and suggested the measures. Some of the measures are in the process of being implemented for the test which is scheduled on June 21.”