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Vanshika Yadav vs. Union of India and Others

Not available · 2024 INSC 553Decided 23 Jul 2024
Not available
Chief Justice Dr. Dhananjaya Y. Chandrachud · Justice J.B. Pardiwala · Justice Manoj Misra

Background

The NEET-UG 2024 medical entrance examination, conducted by the National Testing Agency for over 23 lakh candidates competing for about 1.08 lakh MBBS seats, was hit by allegations that its question paper had leaked at examination centres in Hazaribagh (Jharkhand) and Patna (Bihar). Numerous writ petitions and transfer petitions were filed before the Supreme Court seeking a fresh re-test for all candidates, arguing the leak was systemic and had compromised the whole exam. The Court had earlier directed the NTA, the Union Government, and the CBI (which was investigating the leak) to file detailed disclosures and a data-analytics report from IIT Madras.

Decision Breakdown

After hearing arguments over four days and reviewing the CBI's status reports and the IIT Madras data analysis, the Court concluded that while a leak had genuinely occurred at the Hazaribagh and Patna centres (with roughly 155 identified beneficiaries), there was no material on record showing the breach was systemic or that it had compromised the integrity of the examination nationwide: city-wise and year-on-year data comparisons did not indicate a widespread leak. Since it was possible to identify and act against the specific tainted beneficiaries rather than penalise all 2.3 million candidates, the Court declined to order a nationwide re-test, while leaving open further action against anyone later found to have benefited from the fraud and disposing of the connected transfer petitions and individual grievances (referable to the jurisdictional High Courts).

Lesson Learnt

Even where fraud or malpractice is proven in some part of a large public process, courts will only order a wholesale remedy (like cancelling an entire national exam) if the taint is shown to be systemic and the guilty cannot be separated from the innocent, otherwise the fair recourse is to isolate and act only against the identified wrongdoers.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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