The Supreme Court today(November 2) asked the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) to file written submissions justifying why it shouldn't disclose questions along with answer keys for the NEET PG examination.
A bench comprising Justice PS Narasimha and Justice Alok Aradhe was hearing a writ petition filed by Democratic Medical Association in which, among other reliefs, it was sought that the NBEMS should upload individual OMR answer sheets to the login account, along with the question paper and the corresponding answer key, immediately after the examination. Notice was issued on October 15.
Senior Advocate Shikhil Suri, for the petitioners, submitted that the NBEMS disclosed the master set and the answers, but for the questions from which the other sets are prepared, they have only disclosed the question IDs.
The NBEMS's counsel stated that the question bank for PG is very limited and therefore it's a national asset.
The NBEMS counsel submitted: "What we are disclosing now on the portal is not the master question paper. Each candidate gets a different question paper as they are shuffled in different sets. On each portal, we are giving question IDs, the status of the answers, and what was the correct answer. Only thing we are not disclosing is questions, we are giving question IDs."
One of the counsels appearing in the matter claimed that previous years' NEET PG question papers were readily sold on Amazon, questioning the rationale behind NBEMS's reluctance to disclose the questions.
On this, Justice Narasimha asked: "What happens to transparency?"
The NBEMS counsel responded: "The question bank for NEET PG, it is at the apex of the pyramid. It is not mathematics but science; there are fixed questions to the fixed questions. My lords will have to see that it's in the public interest. Questions are very limited and we have people, experts coming from the entire country and make question bank. They don't have copyright as it becomes a national asset. If we start disclosing the questions itself, year after year, all our questions in the next 5-6 years will be quoted...This is a difficult paper...we don't want that they have a key."
She also stated that many countries follow such models, not disclosing question papers, including AIIMS.
But Justice Narasimha said what follows in other countries is no model for India. He adjourned the matter but asked the NBEMS counsel to come up with a detailed explanation why they stand on a different footing than other examinations where questions are disclosed. "Explain to us in a little more detail why you stand on a different footing,"
It ordered: "The National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) shall file written submissions explaining why disclosure of questions may not compromise the integrity for upholding the exams for postgraduate NEET."
The present petition is listed with the main petitions: Federation of All India Medical Association (Advocate Tanvi Dubey) and United Doctors Front(Adv Charu Mathur and Ritu Raniwal AOR (for UDF) where structural issues in relation to the working of National Testing Agency have been challenged.
Appearances: Advocate Satyam Singh Rajpoot and Advocate-on-Record Neema represent the petitioner, along with Senior Advocate Shishil Suri