The Supreme Court on Monday began hearings on a series of petitions concerning the contentious NEET-UG 2024 medical entrance examination. A counsel representing NEET-UG aspirants informed the court that the National Testing Agency (NTA), responsible for conducting the exam, has acknowledged a paper leak and the distribution of the leaked questions via WhatsApp.

Initially, the bench, which includes Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, inquired about the findings from the centre-wise and city-wise results of the exam. The hearing is currently in progress.

NTA’s analysis of the results, disclosed on Saturday, suggested that those who might have gained from the paper leak and other discrepancies did not perform well. Nonetheless, certain centres displayed a significant number of high-scoring students.

Instead of a collective format, the extensive data for over 23 lakh candidates across 4,750 centres was released as a drop-down menu for each centre, following the Supreme Court’s directive amidst ongoing hearings on the alleged irregularities, with many aspirants awaiting the exam’s final outcome.

Candidates from scrutinized centres, such as Oasis School in Hazaribagh, Jharkhand, Hardayal Public School in Jhajjar, Haryana, and Jay Jalaram International School in Godhra, Gujarat, performed notably poorly. On July 18, the bench ordered the NTA to announce the centre and city-wise results by noon on July 20, concealing the identities of the candidates.

The bench expressed its intention to determine if the scores of candidates from the suspected centres were higher than those from other centres. Currently, the bench is considering over 40 petitions, including those by the NTA, to transfer cases pending in various high courts related to the alleged irregularities.