New Delhi: The Supreme Court Friday said it will ensure the end of ad-hocism in NEET and institutionalise the exam system for medical courses, asking the Centre to give a detailed response on how it intends to protect data once the entrance test is computerised.
A bench led by Justice P.S.Narasimha said data leak could occur even in computerised format. But how will the government safeguard this transition is what it needs to focus on, the court said, giving it a week’s time to file its affidavit on the issues pointed out by the court during the hearing.
“We will go an extra mile to see that it is institutionalised. We can’t let it go on like this. We need to get out of the cycle of errors. We will closely monitor this,” said the bench, fixing 3 August to hear the matter next.
The bench was hearing a batch of petitions dreading accountability in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET). These cases were filed soon after reports on the NEET paper leaks made headlines.
Though the Centre was expected to file its response before Friday, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said the government wanted more time to place the same. He informed the bench that some developments are likely to happen on this front, which the government wanted to place before the court.
Referring to the Radhakrishnan committee report, the bench asked Mehta to reflect and a host of suggestions made in it.
“There is a suggestion to shift to computer based testing. So, what is the proposal, how will you tackle cyber security; who is to undertake it; what is the process of verification of candidates,” the bench said.
The judges also raised concerns about the proposed digitisation of the exam system, saying how it would be secured.
Mehta promised the government would take care of the “problems of children,” which was being monitored and supervised at the senior level.
The bench began the hearing with a comment on ad-hocism. “This has troubled us. Institutionalisation is a must,” it said.
The judges pointed to the ten verticals suggested by the Radhakrishnan committee and said the government needs to inform the court how it proposes to create and operate them.
Also, the court asked Mehta to provide details of the steps that would be taken during the three stages of the exam—pre, during and post.
“In the pre-test stage, we want to know the proposed modalities and which bodies will conduct in different states and districts. What will be the composition of this body,” the court said, asking Mehta to also apprise on whether the NEET exam will follow the JEE system.
The top court also touched upon the aspects of printing and transportation.
“For this particular year, you had deployed IAF. This is an ad-hoc situation,” it said.
The government, Mehta said, can assure that there is no adversarial approach with children. “We may even go beyond the Radhakrishnan committee report to streamline this.”
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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