“NTA needs to be revamped; you can’t hold exam of this magnitude under present system”: Kapil Sibal

After the Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to cancel the NEET-UG 2024 exam, Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal said that the National Testing Agency (NTA) needs to be completely revamped, adding that the government cannot hold an All-India exam of this magnitude under the present system.
Sibal told that the Supreme Court has accepted that the paper leak has happened.
“The Supreme Court has asked the IIT Delhi to look into the matter as to how to deal with these issues. They asked for evidence regarding to what extent the paper had leaked. They have concluded that it is localised, and therefore, why punish thousands and lakhs of students who sat for NEET, who are not involved in the localised manipulation of the results of a particular paper. We must give credit to the Supreme Court for looking into all of this expeditiously and having come to the conclusion that yes, there have been leaks but the question is not what the Court has done,” he said.
“Why in every examination during this government there are leaks in every exam?
The question is who is involved and for whose benefit are the leaks happening?
Who are the people without merit who got jobs? Recently, we have seen an IAS officer getting into services based on a false caste certificate. The National Testing Agency(NTA) needs to be completely revamped. You cannot hold an all India exam of this magnitude under a present NTA system,” Sibal added.
The Rajya Sabha MP further emphasized that laws don’t make a difference because what you have to do is deal with malady.
“Do we need another structure to deal with examinations? All these things need to be looked at. Why should NEET be an all-India examination? That’s another thing that Tamil Nadu has objected to because the NEET exam is based on the CBSE system and many students in local boards possibly cannot compete with ones of the CBSE system,” he pointed out.
“The government is for everyone and it should think for every section of our youth who is sitting for this exam,” he added further.
The Supreme Court today held that there was no systemic breach in the exam.
A bench of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra said that at the present stage, there is an absence of material on record to lead to the conclusion that the result of the exam is vitiated or that there is any systematic breach.
It said the data on record is not indicative of a systemic leak of the NEET-UG question paper, which would indicate a disruption of the sanctity of the exam.
However, it acknowledged the fact that the leak of the NEET-UG paper took place at Hazaribagh and Patna and said that it is “not in dispute”.
The apex court also said that the report submitted by the government shows probe is on and the central agency indicates that material shows 155 students drawn from the exam centres at Hazaribagh and Patna appeared to be the beneficiaries of the fraud.