NEW DELHI: The National Testing Agency (NTA) submitted an affidavit to the Supreme Court late on Wednesday night, addressing the allegations of paper leaks during the Neet-UG examination in Patna and Sawai Madhopur. The agency stated that these claims were unfounded and that the examination’s integrity remained intact.
On allegation of paper leakage at Patna, NTA said, “No question paper was found kissing in any trunk; no locks were found broken; NTA observers did not report anything adverse; and, the constantly monitored CCTV coverage in the command centre no incident of paper leakage was observed.” SC on Monday, based on averments of petitioners, had said there was no doubt that paper leak had taken place.
At Sawai Madhopur, a wrong medium question paper was initially distributed which was later corrected. But some candidates protested and left the centre without giving the examination with the question paper and thereafter a picture of the question paper was circulated on social media alleging it to be a paper leak, the NTA said.
On the list of 17 suspected wrongdoers candidates at the Patna centre being furnished by the Bihar police which initially investigated the matter prior to its transfer to CBI, the NTA said an assessment performance of these 17 candidates did not disclose much impact on the conduct of the examination at the centre and the performance of these students were moderate to below average (marks obtained by them ranged from 609 to 69).
NTA said to make the examinations glitch and malpractice free, it is weighing the option of, in consultation with stakeholders, “shifting from pen and paper mode (OMR based) to computer based test (CBT) mode.”
It said the question paper video on Telegram social media platform has been identified by the channel as fake and “timestamp was manipulated to create a false impression of an early leak (of question papers of NEET-UG),” it said.
It said the results of top 100 candidates were analysed and it was found that they are distributed across 95 centres located in 56 cities in 18 states/UTs. NTA said no abnormality in the distribution of marks of candidates in Neet-UG was found after a detailed analysis.
On allegation of paper leakage at Patna, NTA said, “No question paper was found kissing in any trunk; no locks were found broken; NTA observers did not report anything adverse; and, the constantly monitored CCTV coverage in the command centre no incident of paper leakage was observed.” SC on Monday, based on averments of petitioners, had said there was no doubt that paper leak had taken place.
At Sawai Madhopur, a wrong medium question paper was initially distributed which was later corrected. But some candidates protested and left the centre without giving the examination with the question paper and thereafter a picture of the question paper was circulated on social media alleging it to be a paper leak, the NTA said.
On the list of 17 suspected wrongdoers candidates at the Patna centre being furnished by the Bihar police which initially investigated the matter prior to its transfer to CBI, the NTA said an assessment performance of these 17 candidates did not disclose much impact on the conduct of the examination at the centre and the performance of these students were moderate to below average (marks obtained by them ranged from 609 to 69).
NTA said to make the examinations glitch and malpractice free, it is weighing the option of, in consultation with stakeholders, “shifting from pen and paper mode (OMR based) to computer based test (CBT) mode.”
It said the question paper video on Telegram social media platform has been identified by the channel as fake and “timestamp was manipulated to create a false impression of an early leak (of question papers of NEET-UG),” it said.
It said the results of top 100 candidates were analysed and it was found that they are distributed across 95 centres located in 56 cities in 18 states/UTs. NTA said no abnormality in the distribution of marks of candidates in Neet-UG was found after a detailed analysis.