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NEW DELHI: Amid street protests by the youth against paper leaks and demands that govt fix accountability and bring reforms, the Supreme Court Friday said the system’s ad hocism was “troubling”, which could not be allowed to go on and assured that it would “tread an extra mile” to fix the problems and make NEET foolproof.With solicitor general Tushar Mehta contending that govt was ready to tread “10 extra miles” to protect the interests of students and that the matter was being supervised at the highest level, a bench of Justices P S Narasimha and Alok Aradhe asked him to expeditiously take a decision. It granted time till Aug 3 to brief them about the contours of the new system.The court also sought the Centre’s response on implementing computer-based test for medical entrance on the lines of IIT-JEE. The court was hearing a batch of petitions, including ones filed by the Federation of All India Medical Association and United Doctors Front, seeking the court’s intervention to make NEET tamper-free. The SG, at the outset of the hearing, said the issue was under serious consideration of govt and sought adjournment for a few days. He said some developments were likely to take place soon.The bench, however, pointed out various issues which govt needed to address, including implementation of recommendations of the high-level committee headed by former Isro chairman K Radhakrishnan.“We will highlight a couple of things we wanted to indicate… Last time, you mentioned the Radhakrishnan committee’s recommendations. There is a specific reference to the governing board. So your affidavit should indicate what has been done with respect to the governing board, which would consist of transparency, nominations and stakeholders,” the bench said.SC said it will keep monitoring the process till the system is institutionalised. “We are focusing on institutionalisation. Ad-hocism has troubled us the most throughout these years.”“A very important aspect is the transition to computer-based testing…. Can it be shifted? How will the data be transferred? How will the data be protected? Data safety is the most important aspect. You indicate to us. Cybersecurity, who is to undertake it, how it is to be conducted etc,” the bench asked.Dr Radhakrishnan, head of the monitoring committee constituted by SC in 2024 to suggest ways to strengthen NEET, earlier informed the court the committee had submitted 35 long-term recommendations and around 60 short-term recommendations, most of which had already been implemented. He said the reforms had largely yielded positive results in NEET-PG 2025, which was conducted “mostly satisfactorily” except for some issues such as power outages.
