As Parliament commenced its monsoon session on Monday, the Opposition clashed with the government on the NEET examination paper leak issue in the Lok Sabha and staged a walk-out over Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s replies during the Question Hour.

Reacting to the Minister’s statements, Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi said it is obvious to the whole country there is a serious problem in the examination system; not just in NEET, but in all major examinations. The Minister does not seem to appreciate the current crisis, he said.

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Millions of students are convinced the Indian examination system was not trustworthy, he said. “This is what is at stake here. Millions believe that if you are rich you can buy the system. This is a systemic issue, and what exactly is the government doing to fix the issue at the systemic level,” he said.

Mr Pradhan said it was unfortunate Mr Gandhi had said that the country’s examination system is not trustworthy, “I condemn it.” The UPA government, he said, had brought three Bills including the Prohibition of Unfair Practices in Examination Bill in 2010 to reform the educational system and the Bills were deferred.

The NDA government, he said, has shown courage to get a Bill enacted on the unfair practices issue. The UPA government had brought the Bill to reform the examination system, and why was it withdrawn. Was it done under pressure from private institutions, he asked.

As the Opposition members kept rising on their seats on the Minister’s replies, Speaker Om Birla intervened and said there have been governments in States run by different parties and there were paper leaks also.

It would not be fair to students to make allegations and raise questions on all examinations, he said. It should be seen what improvements can be made in the system and the government can take suggestions from all to work out a better system.

The CBI is investigating the current issue and the Supreme Court is monitoring it, he said, and it would not be fair to raise questions on all examinations.

The entire Opposition, dissatisfied with the Education Minister’s answers, walked out of the House.

Responding to the question by Mr Manickam Tagore (Congress) and Dr Kalanidhi Veeraswamy (DMK), the Education Minister said over 24 lakh candidates registered for the NEET (UG) 2024 examination, out of which over 23 lakh took the examination.

Certain cases of alleged “irregularities/cheating/malpractices” were reported and there was one instance where there was a likely “breach of chain of custody of Question Paper,” he said. The Ministry of Education has asked the CBI to conduct a comprehensive investigation into the case.

Mr Tagore said there were question paper leaks 70 times during the last seven years and wanted to know what steps including use of technology were being taken to prevent recurrence of the complaints.

The Education Minister said there was no evidence of any paper leakages in the last seven years. The current case was before the Supreme Court and the CBI was investigating it. After the National Testing Agency (NTA) was set up, five crore students had applied for 240 examinations and 4.50 crore students took the examinations.

Mr Tagore said ”should the Education Minister not resign, accepting his responsibility for the severe breach in the examination, and its impact on the 24 lakh students”. Mr Pradhan said he was holding the post at the pleasure of the Prime Minister and accountability was collectively of the government. There was only one case of anomaly and it was being investigated by the CBI.

When Dr Veeraswamy said the NEET examination had taken lives of students, Mr Pradhan said the decision on the NEET examination was taken by the UPA government in 2010 and twice the issue came up in the Supreme court and the need for the single examination for the country was upheld by it.

The NEET was first held by the CBSE and later by the NTA, and the current agitation against it is only because of political reasons, the Minister said.

Mr N K Premachandran (RSP) demanded a Joint Parliamentary Committee as the issue concerned a large number of students. The credibility of the competitive examination was already lost, he said. Mr Akhilesh Yadav (Samajwadi Party) said students getting highest marks should be investigated.

The Minister said the government has nothing to hide and everyone should wait for the Supreme Court’s guidance as all facts had been placed before it. He said SC, ST and OBC students had done well in the examination and asked if it would be fair to contest their performance.

Mr Hibi Eden (Congress) raised the NEET examination issue again during the Zero Hour in the Lok Sabha.