City-wise NEET results show 3.5% students got over 600 out of 720; SC to hear matter on Monday

A score of more than 600 was good enough to land a seat in a government medical college in 2023.

According to the city-wise and centre-wise results released by NTA as ordered by the Supreme Court, over 100 centres of the total 4,750 where the entrance test was held this year had more than three times the share of high-scoring candidates (scores exceeding 600 out of 720 marks) than the national average, shows NTA data.

More than half of these 109 examination centres are located in Sikar (44) and Kota (16), which are coaching hubs in Rajasthan. Of the 44 test centres in Sikar with high-scoring candidates, more than half (24) have at least five times (18 percent and above) the national average of candidates who scored more than 600 marks.

This is more or less in line with the analysis of the NEET-UG results by IIT-Madras, which the Centre presented before the Supreme Court to assert there is no abnormality in the results to indicate any large-scale malpractice. A city-wise spread of the top 60,000 rankers in the examination this year showed 3,405 in Sikar, 2,033 in Kota and 1,561 in Patna. Patna had 1,993 candidates in the top 60,000 ranks last year.

The Supreme Court had on Thursday said it wanted to see the end of the matter by Monday. It had fixed the issue for hearing next on July 22.

The report also attributed Kota and Sikar's performance to “these places having many coaching classes”. Apart from 24 exam centres in Rajasthan’s Sikar, four exam centres, one each in Haryana’s Rewari (Delhi Public School, Rewari), Hissar (DAV Police Public School), Bhwani (Delhi World Public School) and Mahendragarh (Rao Prahlad Singh Senior Secondary School) had more than five times the national average of candidates with 600 marks and above.

Patna, Godhra, Latur and Hazaribagh, where test centres are under the CBI’s investigation for the alleged leak of the NEET-UG paper, do not show a markedly higher proportion of top-scoring candidates. The results are declared city-wise and centre-wise but the identity of the aspirant is kept hidden. (Express Photo/ Representational Image)

For instance, this year, all 70 NEET-UG examination centres in Patna have a percentage of candidates scoring 600 and above ranging from 2% to 6%, compared to 3.5% nationally. Of the 54 test centres in Latur, 16 have a proportion of high-achieving candidates between 6% and 8%. In Hazaribagh, all five test centres have 3% to 6% of their total candidates scoring 600 marks or higher.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court had asked NTA to publish city-wise and centre-wise NEET-UG 2024 results of all 23 lakh candidates, masking their identities, on its website by noon Saturday.

The next court hearing will be on Monday (July 22) at 10:30 am. (Express Photo/ Representational Image)

Appearing for the Centre, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta had said while the results can be published, doing so centre-wise was riddled with problems. “There are coaching centres, there are several problems,” he told the Bench.

But the court persisted. “No…let it be done. We have to see the end of the matter by Monday,” said Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud, fixing the next hearing on July 22. “The reason why we were engaging in a detailed line of enquiry is the fact that there was a leak at least in Patna and Hazaribagh… the question papers had been disseminated before the exam, that’s undoubted,” the CJI said

The question before the Bench was whether the leak was confined to only two centres, in which case there is no question of a retest, or whether this was more widespread. “The students have a certain degree of handicap because they would never have the kind of data which is necessary to prove,” the CJI said.