Hearing pleas in concern with the , the Supreme Court on Friday quizzed the National Testing Agency (NTA), which said that the matter is being monitored by none other than Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself, and 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,” Justice P.S. Narasimha presiding over a two-judge bench said. He added, in a situation of the given nature, unless the responsibility is identified, it will only remain a case of committees holding meeting after meetings.
The bench, also comprising Justice Alok Aradhe, said that the agency must learn from bodies like the Union Public Service Commission 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, never been a situation like this. We need to learn…”, Justice Narasimha said.
The judge added that “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 practises.”
The bench also interacted with former Chairman, K Radhakarishnan who is also the head of the Monitoring Committee set up by the apex court in 2024 to recommend measures to strengthen the NEET exams.
“You were also part of the expert committee. A highly empowered committee. Followed by the fact that you are also appointed as the monitoring committee. Now how much of 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 added, “Despite of your monitoring on the basis of the HPC’s recommendation, if this incident 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 that was formed in June 2024, after the problems in NEET, and had give 60 recommendations for 2025 and 2026, and 35 for the long-term.
He added that most of these had been implemented while a few are in the process of being implemented.
He said that in 2025, the NEET UG was conducted almost satisfactorily but for power failures in some centres.
Radhakrishnan said it had also recommended steps “to strengthen NTA which was really outstretched to conduct all the test 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.”
He added, “There are certain protocols, certain practices to be followed. These are under implementation. Many are implemented. A few are yet to be done.” He assured 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.”
Justice Narasimha said what has happened is “traumatic” for the lakhs of students who spent years preparing. “We should not disappoint our youngsters, its very traumatising so much investment of emotions and time…It’s a most sensitive thing.”
Agreeing, 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 added that Radhakrishnan “did not very advisedly say certain things because the investigation is on. Also, some new mechanisms are also put in place, for June 21 exams. Not divulging but it is monitored at the highest possible executive level.” Mehta said, “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. “Has it been institutionalised? In the sense whether it has a regular office of permanent people, who would be conducting it year after year, through institutional memory?”, he asked.
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 “previously, in 2024, we had problem in the test centres in different places, in the transportation of the question papers from 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 that during the course of the examination, there are also certain new things which are found by the committee. 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.”
The court asked the Centre to file an affidavit by the next date of hearing.
