The Wire Staff 
New Delhi: The centre-wise results of the NEET-Under Graduate (UG) entrance examination released by the National Talent Agency (NTA) following a Supreme Court order has shown that none of the centres across Gujarat, Bihar, Jharkhand and Haryana, which are under the watch of the central bureau of investigation (CBI) over an alleged ‘paper leak’, had benefitted from it.
The results uploaded on the NTA’s website on Saturday (July 20), has held up that only three students scored more than 650 marks at the Oasis School in Hazaribagh, Jharkhand, where the ‘paper leak’ was reported after the the lock on the trunk containing the question papers was found to be broken.
NTA, a private entity that conducts the NEET entrance examinations to fill MBBS seats in government-run medical colleges, has come under a cloud due to allegations of paper leaks in several states. The widespread row over the allegations led to students demanding a retest. The government refused and, instead, instituted a CBI inquiry into the matter. At least 21 people have been arrested by the central probe agency for their alleged involvement in the multi-state ‘paper leak’ case.
Concurrently, a set of petitions was filed with the Supreme Court seeking an answer to the issue affecting thousands of youths. The plea included a stay on the counselling for the UG medical courses set to begin on July 24.
A three-judge bench of the apex court led by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud has been hearing the petitions. On July 18, the bench had asked NTA to upload the results centre-wise after masking the students’ names.
A perusal of the results show that while the centres located in coaching hubs, like Rajasthan’s Kota and Kerala’s Kottayam, had done exceedingly well, those which had come under the scanner for the ‘paper leak’ controversy had fared poorly.
For instance, the NEET-UG results showed that of the 701 candidates enrolled with the Oasis School in Hazaribag, termed as the ‘epicentre’ of the paper leak controversy, no student scored more than 700. In June this year, the CBI had arrested the school’s principal Ehsanul Haque and vice principal Imtiaz Alam. As per news reports, the economic offence unit of Bihar Police had found a burnt question paper at a private school’s hostel in Patna. The booklet number in that question paper matched the ones used for the entrance exam at Oasis.
In yet another centre associated with the controversy, Jay Jalaram International School in Gujarat’s Godhra, none of its 1,836 candidates scored more than 700. Just seven of its students bagged marks between 650 and 699.
Additionally, no candidate scored more than 682 in the revised results for the centre in Haryana that too had come under the scanner after six aspirants had scored full marks (720). The scores were revised after a re-test was conducted as ordered by the SC as undue grace marks were said to have been given to those students.
“Only 13 candidates who appeared at Hardayal Public School in Jhajjar, Haryana, managed to score more than 600 marks,” pointed out the Tribune.
The next date of hearing in the case at the Supreme Court is set for July 22.