New Delhi, Jul 17 (IANS): The Supreme Court is slated to hear on Thursday a batch of pleas alleging irregularities in the conduct of the NEET-UG 2024 examination and seeking its cancellation.

As per the cause list published on the website of the apex court, a bench presided over by CJI D.Y. Chandrachud will resume hearing the matter on July 18.

In the previous hearing, the Bench, also comprising Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, decided to adjourn the hearing on the joint request of the parties, noting that the CBI has put on record the status report in relation to paper leak allegations.

In its affidavit, the Centre told the top court that the data analysis conducted by IIT-Madras shows that there was neither any indication of mass malpractice nor a localised set of candidates being benefitted, leading to abnormal scores in NEET-UG examination held on May 5 this year.

“There is an overall increase in the marks obtained by students, specifically in the range of 550 to 720. This increase is seen across the cities and centres. This is attributed to a 25 per cent reduction in the syllabus,” said the Centre, adding that candidates obtaining such high marks were spread across multiple cities and multiple centres, indicating very “less likelihood of malpractice”.

After a comprehensive data analysis using parameters like marks distribution, city-wise and centre-wise rank distribution and candidates spread over a range, experts of IIT-Madras opined “no abnormality”, the affidavit said.

Earlier, the SC had directed the NTA to make full disclosure regarding the nature of the paper leak, the places where leaks took place, and the lag of time between the occurrence of the leak and the conduct of examination.

It also asked the CBI to file a status report indicating the status of the investigation and the material collected during the course of the probe.